Muradin Bronzebeard the Teen Titan
by El Loco
Summary: WarcraftTT crossover. Muradin has died, but before he can take take his place among the legends he has to prove that he is worthy by joining the Titans as a young hero. Violence and some Yuri
1. Default Chapter

El Loco: First of all.. HOLA!! I know it's been well over a year since I wrote anything here but due to some complications from the outside (really big freaking end of course exams) and some other internal ones (accidentally splitting my internet connection in two with my axe) I was unable to update my other story. But that's all in the past now, it's time to pick up the pieces of my life and move on!! Like I usually do anyway....

So anyway I welcome you to my latest creation "Muradin Bronzebeard the Teen Titan"! And I will also like to extend my deepest gratitudes to my favorite authoress, **Ashishu**!!! Who inspired me to take up the pen once again....well keyboard but you get the idea

mmm....what next? Oh yeah disclamer!!!

I "El Loco de el Clan de los Locos" state that I do not posses any of the following licensed materials: Diablo II, Steel Angel Kurumi, Teen Titans, Arcanum, Warcraft III, The Simpsons and Zelda. All borrowed materials are property of their rightful owners which I will not mention for I have no idea who they are.

So please do not sue me for I am not even profiting out of this... actually I should be getting paid 'cause I am in someway commercializing their products bunch of freeloaders.

Dizzied May: Totally agree. Bastards. Oh yeah. This story was beta'd by ME, THE BEST BETA EVER!, so. yes. all my fault.

In memory of my friend Shelica, whose death was caused by the intolerance and racism that plagued our school

Prolouge

They had left their dead bretheren behind among the corpses of the rotting undead guardians of the fabled blade Frostmourne.The human prince and his dwarven mentor entered the frozen treasure chasm, there was neither gold nor precious jewels to loot, not even a single piece of treasure could be seen in the dead cold cave, it would almost seem that all their efforts to reach the mysterious sword, and the sacrifice of their troops were in vain. However, in the middle of the desolated place stood a pedestal with a block of ice and trapped within, was what appeared to be a demonic-looking sword, with a blade that resembled fanged teeth and a ram skull engraved in the hilt. It was erected upright displaying it's malevolent precense to all who entered it's cursed domain.

The young prince led the way to the sword and rushed to it excitedly,

"Behold Muradin, our salvation. Frostmourne"

"Hold lad, therre's an inscription in the dais. It's a warning, it's says; 'Whomsoever should take up this blade should wield powerr eterrnal. Just as the blade rrends flesh, so most powerr scarr the spirrit' ... Oh, I should've know, the blade is currsed!! Let's get the hell out of herre!!"

As the dwarven warrior turned to leave he was taken back when he saw his companion step closer to the blade

"I would gladly bear any curse, to save my homeland"

"Oh leave it be Arrthas, forrget this buissnes and lead yer men home"

"Damn the men!! Nothing will prevent me from having my revenge old friend, not even you"

With this the young prince raised his warhammer to the air and summoned his spiritual strength

"Now I call out to the spirits of this place, I would give any thing or pay any price if only you would help me save my people"

Nothing appear to happen, dead silence only befiting the eerie place could be heard. Then suddenly a raspy ghostly wisper filled the air, pronuncing what it seemed more like an incantation than actual words, the ice block started violently shaking and the dwarven warrior changed to a defensive position but the prince stood unmoved seemingly fascinated by the whole scene. The ice that acted as a prision for the sword shattered and one of it's lost pieces flew straight for the dwarf, it went through his magickal hammer and magickal chest plate and into his heart.

"AAARRRRGGGHH!! .......uugg...."

The mighty dwarf was felled with a single blow from the ice shard as he lay bleeding in the freezing floor, he could still hear the ghostly wisper. He raised his head to see his human friend dropping his warhammer and taking up the sword and was schocked when he just suddenly turned and left. Leaving his mentor, fellow warrior and best friend to die. He allowed his head to rest in the snow covered floor and felt the warmth of life leaving his body quickly, then he saw darkness and felt finally death.

"Muradin... Muradin Bronzebeard!"

"Agh, not now mum, I still want to sleep some 'orre"

"Get up you fool!!! I'm not your mother I'm your lawyer!!"

"My lawyerr?"

Muradin awoke seated in a chair in the middle of a great hall sorrounded by cloaked figures dressed in gold, seated next by him was a man dressed in a brown cloak who seemed rather annoyed by the last comment.

"Werre am I!!??"

"Muradin Bronzebeard"

He turned to see another cloaked figure wrapped in brilliant golden attire, luminant tentacles seemed to be attached to his back and was seated atop a high pedestal, he was looking down on him, he spoke with a mighty authoritarian voice. Even so, Muradin was not one to impress easily.

"That's me, what do ye want?"

"Your time in the earth realm has ended mighty warrior, your spirit is now being held on trial to weight the actions you did in your time as a mortal, because you were a hero in the eyes of many your actions are of greater importance than those who did not strive as hard for power as you did. So then; we, the guardians of the celestial planes, will now judge the goodness or evilness of your soul as we have done so to many other heroes like yourself throught the centuries"

"...........Whut?"

Muradin narrowed his eyes to the angelic judge, so far he had understood absolutely nothing. The judged rolled his eyes and motioned to the man seated next to Muradin

"You got killed, and we're gonna decide whether you go to hell or heaven"

"AH CRRAP!! Don't tell me I got killed by measly block of ice!!!"

As Muradin said this, the assembly was covered in silence -it was never easy to be trialed right after you have died, the great majority of heroes do not enjoy the news of their own death and are prone to acts of anger, many a time an enreged hero took his frustrated anger upon the council and a powerfull warrior such as Muradin would take a heavy toll upon the council members.

"Oh well. Shit happens to ye everry now and then, now what was that about me going to heaven?"

The judge wiped some sweat of his forehead and cleared his throat

"Ahem. Yes, well, first we need to know your profile, attorney Virgil- if you please"

"Of course your honor, this dwarf esteemed council members, is none other than the stout Muradin Bronzebeard second in line of the Ironforge's throne and as such closest to Magni Bronzebeard the very king of the dwarves himself. He is very well responsible for the continued existance of the dwarven race, if not for him your honor many more Alliance's cities would have fallen under orcish seiges. He was prince Arthas's, the late new death knight, mentor but cannot be held accountable for his protegee's corruption, I dare even to say council members that Muradin was and still remains the most powerful and brave dwarven warrior in all of Azeroth's history"

"Ye forrgot to mention the most good-looking one"

The assembly let out an exasperated sigh, seems that even the greatest heroes have flaws.

"Yes, at any rate I have the report here of your most recent and important actions, Muradin Bronzebeard I will declare the veredict as soon as I'm done reading them."

"Yeh and make it snappy, I need to go to heaven so I can get me some fine dwarrven ale... they better have the Khaz Modanian type overr therre or some heads arre gonna rroll ye hear!!"

Muradin shouted at no one in particular as he changed to a more relaxed position, hands on the back of his head and feet on top of the desk that his attorney was using to hold his papers. He seemed very confident of his more heavenly future, after all- he was the savior of his race.

After a few short minutes the judge settled the scroll that he was holding in his desk.

"Muradin Bronzebeard,"

"Finally! Ye took yer bloody time, now open the gates of heaven alrready so I can get going"

"Who said that we were going to allow you to enter heaven's gate?"

"WHUT!?"

"Muradin Bronzebeard, it may be true that you were a brave warrior and defender of your race, but that's just it, your actions were solely dictated by the welfare of your own race. You would have struck a deal with the orcs if they would have left Khaz Modan, your home, alone."

"Agh! That's bullcrrap!! I killed hundrreds of those grreen-skinned bastarrds!!"

The judge smiled.

"That is another thing, your disrespect for the other races's traits are simply unforgivable, you are responsible for many stereotypes that were created in Azeroth, such as starting calling the undead 'Rotting Bastards'"

"Don't tell me yer in the side of the frreaking undead!!"

"Those poor souls were converted to the unholy ranks despite their will, you were in no position to insult them in such a manner"

"What are ye a bunch of pansies!!?"

"THAT IS ENOUGH!!"

The assembly room was illuminated by the enfuriated glow of the judge, Muradin and the others present were all taken back by this sudden display of power of the usually good-natured angel

"Muradin, your acts of insolence to those who are different to you are simply intolerable, you were beginning to see the error of your ways after the second war, but you soon fell back to your xenophobic ways."

The judge took out another scroll.

"Here I have a very extended list of the insults you used for the degradation of others as well as your own amusement, starting with using gnomes as the butt of jokes in strength terms and constantly taunting the human commanders of the Alliance as I quote, 'Yer prretty slow for a human aren't ye?'"

"Ha! Ye have to admit they're prretty bloody slow, like this guy that kept poking me when we werre in the middle of a battle and--"

"Your disrespect to this court only gives us more evidence to condem you to hell, Muradin, do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Muradin quickly turn to look at his lawyer.

"Hey, that's yer job isn't it? Ye have to get me out of this mess, otherrwise I'm going to the bloody 'ell!!"

"Don't worry Muradin, I foresaw this and thought of a brilliant plan way ahead of time."

"Allrright, this better be good."

Virgil stood up from his chair and looked at the judge as he wiped some sweat from his brow and adjusted his cloak.

"Your honor, esteemed council members, the defense wishes to have a 10 minute lunch break"

"Denied" bangs hammer

"Well, I'm all out of ideas."

"WHUT!?"

Virgil sat down again and simply started reading some hentai manga leaving Muradin looking back and forth in the assembly, at a loss of words.

"Ooh, tentacles" Virgil murmured

"Well, seeing that there is no defense against the crimes comitted by you dwarf, I now condemn your inmortal soul to an eternity in the fiery bowls of he--"

"STOP!!"

The doors of the assembly flew open and a girl with angelic wings entered the room rather angrily, archangels armed with flaming swords tried to stop her but were soon disabled by the girl's colossal strength. One true punch for each of them were all that she required to send them flying to other side of the room.

"Wow, that lass is prretty damn good"

The cloaked figures seated around the hall, started to disperse in panic, only the judge, Muradin and his incompetent attorney Virgil remained in their places.

"Steel Angel Saki, you know you artificial types are not allowed in here"

The girl that had desacrated the holy trial was dressed in a pure white tunic. She had dark brown hair and soft depths of swirling chocolate for eyes, and for a celestial being she was not all that impressive even though she had a pair of majestic angel wings on her back. She radiated with an aura of plain simplicity. She scowled angrily,

"I can't believe you were about to condemn brave Muradin for such an unjust cause!"

She walked toward the three remnants of the assembly as she spoke,

"Don't you think you are being a little harsh on him, Tyreal- afterall, he did save a lot of people. Not only dwarves, but humans and elves as well, a person that does things so unselfishly cannot deserve such cruel punishment"

"I care not for what you have to say Steel Angel, your metal impurity leaves you with no say in this trial or any other celestial affairs, for that matter"

Saki narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, so you dare judge this poor soul for being racist when you yourself can't even accept the fact that I was artificially made!??"

"OOooo she got you there Tyreal!"

"Shut up Virgil!!"

"Sorry"

sigh "You do have a point, Saki, I think I am being fairily unjust to Muradin, I must apologize. But I guess that this new position that I was appointed to is getting to my head,"

"Don't worry, all is forgiven" giggle

"So, does that mean I'm not gonna rrott in 'ell forrever?"

"Ha! Not by a long shot, you are not getting out of this one so easily Muradin."

"Blast it!"

Tyreal now reorganized his scrolls and looked for an answer to this new arisen dilemma, the archangel guards that were knocked out slowly regained conciousness and limply dragged their sorry selves out of the assembly hall to lick their wounds. One of them muttered as he left,

"Damn these trials... ung... why can't they simply send them to a quest or something more old fashioned... aggg... this guard duty shit is going to be the death of me..."

Tyreal heard this as they retreated and said to himself,

"Hmmm... that's not a bad idea, would definitely clean my hands in the matter"

He now spoke on a louder voice addressing both Muradin and Saki.

"I have come up with something that may well prove us that you are indeed worthy of joining the celestial ranks. Muradin Bronzebeard, as you know now, you are accused of highly grave crimes of xenophobia and because of that I will set up a quest on you so to speak, to prove the contrary your success or failure will of course be entirely your own decision and will leave me and this assembly free of any sort of guilt"

"Allrright! That's morre like it!"

"Sheez what a horrible disclaimer"

"Show some gratitude Saki, I am after all giving your little friend here a chance"

Saki simply rolled her eyes, for she very well knew that Tyreal was just trying to come out clean out of this one

"As I was saying, this will be what I have in store for you Muradin, you are a 10th level Mountain King are you not?"

"You bet yer pancy angelic arrse I am"

"Your task will be a simple one, I will give you a new body and send you to join a group of mortal heroes that are all very well mismatched, none of them have any similarities beside the fact that they are all good aligned, despite their differences they remain a team and work together as one. Your task, Muradin Bronzebeard, will be to join their ranks and gain an additional 10 levels while you are with them after you have done this you will be granted passage to holy paradise."

"Heh... I got this on me bag"

"However, there is a catch, for every insult or upfront you give to any one member of the team, or any one for that matter about their race, preferences or lifestyles you will recieve one negative level, if you manage to put yourself in a position where you are a Mountain King level 0 you will automatically die and I will personally hurl you to the fires of hell, is that clear?"

"Hmm... let me get this strraigth all I have to do, is kill a bunch of stuff while I'm being nice and frriendly to some rrandom blokes?"

"Yes, well I'm sure that you can gain experience by completing minor quests and such but, yes, that is basically it."

The dwarven warrior stood silent for a moment, he had never being especially good at working in a team, he was a great strategist and led his armies to many victories, but when stuck in a fight he always fought as an individual caring more about defeating opponents than being nice to his fellow soldiers. After a pause he spoke again,

"And uh... I don't suppose I got a choice in the bloody matter"

"No, unless you prefer me flipping a coin?"

"Ah, what the 'ell! I'll do it!!"

"Excellent! Oh, be advised that I will not send you back to Azeroth; this will be one of the many parallel planets that are interwined with your world, because of it Saki here will be your guardian angel seeing than she took a liking towards you."

"What me!?"

"Whut!? I don't need no bleeding angel of merrcy following me arround! I can take care of meself!"

"Like it or not you are stuck with her, unless of course you prefer Virgil."

"Wazzup!"

"No, I think I'll stick with the girrl thank you verry much"

"I thought you might say that, well now prepare yourself Muradin you are off to join the Titans"

"THE TITANS!!??"

Muradin had heard great legends of Titans supposingly creating the entire universe and he was shocked when he heard that he was going to be ascended to godhood.

"Ye mean the Titans creatorrs of Azerroth and all it's species? All powerful beings that shaped the dwarrven race in their image?"

"Errr... no I meant to say the Teen Titans"

"Whut!? Who the bloody 'ell arre the Teen Tita--AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

Tyreal banged his hammer and Muradin was swallowed by the very floor in a flash of light.

"You better get going to Saki"

With that the Steel Angel flew away to meet with her mortal charge, Tyreal turned to leave but Virgil approched him.

"Lord Tyreal are you sure it was a good idea sending him to them? I mean he's a dwarf for crying out loud he's not even a teen!"

"Don't worry, I shall put those young upstarts in a position where they **will** allow him in, just another brilliant streak from my superior intellect; now get lost I have to make preparations."

"Um... excuse me Lord Tyreal, another thing"

"Now what?"

"Uh... Do I still get paid?" :)

Saturday morning in the Titan Tower and all is well, the early hours of morning awaken the young heroes from their peaceful slumber and stirs them to embrace another day brightly. The lazy sun rays take their time to enter the tower's windows for they know that it's habitants are not to be trifled with.

"Come here so I can squash you!!!"

"In your dreams dude!!"

Peacefulness has no meaning in Titan Tower as even in the early hours of the day chaos reigns supreme in the Titans' headquarters

Beast Boy ran across the living room excitedly followed closely by Cyborg, they left a path of destruction wherever they went. Their leader, Robin, had awaken much earlier than them and was reading the morning news, oblivious to the rough play of his subordinates. The cheerful one of the group, Starfire, had been following the two wreckless teens; as they were responsible for getting her up, she entered the room levitating,

"Please! What is the meaning of such scandalous noise at this hour?"

"It's Beast Boy! If he thinks he can sneak into my room and steal my Game Boy, he's got another thing coming!"

"Beast Boy, I implore you please return the Playful Child were it belongs"

"(She means the Game Boy right?) No way Jose! Cyborg's been hogging it all week, it's my turn to play with it!"

"Jose? I am Starfire"

"You only want to play that Zelda crap anyway! If you at least played something that didn't suck I'd let you use it... maybe"

"DUDE! Zelda does not suck, Link totally rules, baby!!"

While the discussion raged on a dark shadowy figure approached it stood motionless as it surveyed the scenery giving apprasing glances as if it was judging the reality of the situation. The figure shook it's head in disapproval and took down it's hood revealing the face of a dark brooding girl. Raven scoffed and muttered in low unaudiable voice,

"I see than none of them died during their sleep... pity"

"Another glorious morning is it not, friend Raven?"

"Whatever" Yawns

She completely ignored Beast Boy and Cyborg fighting and only barely noticed Starfire saying greetings to her. She went over to Robin to serve herself some of her beloved herbal tea.

"Morning Raven"

"Morning, what's new?"

"Hmm... nothing much, seems that we have been doing an awfully good job as of lately there has been almost no crime for the past few days, except for your average bulgaries here and there. Nothing that the local police force can't handle."

"Figures, guess that the lowly scum of this city is no match for us" sips tea

"I wouldn't let my guard down, you never know when Slade might surprise us by coming back from the dead"

"Now there's a fun thought, an undead Slade, just my sort of thing"

Raven unconsiously smirked at the tought while sipping more of her tea, she did know of Robin's little obsessive problem over Slade and then she smiled when she thought of Robin lossing sleep over a zombie Slade nightmare. She took another sip of tea and turned around ending the discussion right there, it was then that she felt that strong feeling in her stomach and then rising to her chest. It made her open her eyes fully and cold sweat formed almost instantly on her forehead, she let her tea cup fall and shatter on the floor and would have collapsed herself if not for being caught by Starfire's powerful arms.

"Friend Raven! What is the matter? Are you unwell?"

"You allright dude?"

"Did you just called her a dude Beast Boy?"

"What? I uh... meant to say dude... ette... yeah! Dudette!"

"Quiet both of you! What's wrong Raven?"

Robin looked at Raven and searched for any injuries while she was being held only by Starfire's hold, her face was twisted up and seemed to be on some sort of inmense internal pain. However as soon as it had come the pain vanished.

"Wow, haven't felt that for a long while,"

She balanced herself on her own feet but even then Stafire refused to let her go being the overprotective girl she was.

"You haven't felt what?"

"Mana... and lot's of it"

"Mana? You mean magick like on Zelda?"

"Well, strangely as it may sound, yes you are right Beast Boy magick like on Zelda (lucky shot)"

"I don't understand Raven, what are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to say that someone or something in approximately a 30 mile radius from here, either just casted a huge spell or unlocked something in this world... something powerful"

"Could mean trouble, Titans prepare to--"

Before Robin could issue a command, the great screen television started to flash, he quickly jumped to the main keyboard and typed something that would activate one of the cameras that Robin had installed all over the city's most important places. The one that responded in particular showed the inside of Gotham's city bank.

"Looks like a normal robbery, doesn't really seem to have a connection with magick."

Robin clicked a mouse and made the camera zoom closer, he could see people running in fear and explosions on the background, it was then that the boy wonder looked at what appeared to be a knight fully dressed in armor wielding a big tower shield and a broadsword.

"Yo! Check out the dude with the armor!" Noted Cyborg

The knight looked around and spotted the blinking camera

"Uh-oh"

"Sergeant we're being watched!!"

Another knight came running to the soldier, he was wearing the same armor as the last one but instead of a broadsword had a spiked mace in his hand. He looked back at Robin through the camera with a look of annoyance and then smashed it to pieces, leaving only static to be seen on the monitor screen.

"Well, that could very well be the surce of your magick Raven, Titans move out!!"

The three boys hurriedly left the scene, but Starfire was still holding Raven in her arms with a tight grip.

"Starfire, you can let go of me now"

"Oops, forgive me!"

Muradin awoke lying face down on hard pavement, the smell of sewer and trash filled his nostrils almost instantly but the foul smell was the least of his worries at that time. Opening his eyes he adjusted his vision to make out the landscape that he had just been teleported to. He appeared to be on a dark city alley, being a dwarf his vision was accostumed to darkness spending a great majority of his life in an underground city, but he was obviously on surface ground because he could see the sky.

Getting to his feet he realized that he no longer was wearing armor nor any of his weapons and items. Instead he was now wearing a strange teal shirt with what appeared to be non-usuable zippers by the sleeves, his waist was being held by a stout belt and he was wearing some pants made out of a material that he had never seen before and lastly, he had some rather stylish leather boots that came almost to his knees.

"A little bit fancy for me liking," thought Muradin

He scratched his head and noticed that his hair was now longer than before, it was also tied back in a long pony tail that went almost as far as half his back.

"Agh! How did this get herre? ACK! Me voice, what happened to me voice!!?"

Muradin then noticed that his once rough cool sounding voice had turned into an almost annoying squeak, he then heard some steps getting closer to him from behind and quickly turned, he immediately recognized the angel-girl that had helped him out on the trial. She was no longer wearing the tunic nor did she had her wings anymore but she was now wearing a strange maid dress.

"There you are! For a moment there I thought I lost--- oh... my... God..."

"Hey! Ye better tell me why am I talking like a bleeding peapsqueak!!"

"Ah, Muradin I think you need to look at this!"

She pulled out a beauty mirror from her pocket and showed it to the dwarf thane, when he looked at it the face that stared back gave him immense horror

"BLOOD AND ASHES!! What have they done to me!? I look like if I'm in my hundrreths!"

"Mmhh, if you are a hundred years old then in human years that would be about... 18?"

"Ma bearrd, my precious, beautiful long bearrd- it's gone!! I just have a measly goatie!!"

Saki was in the very brink of bursting out in laughter, Muradin looked ridiculous like a dwarven kid, and the attire he was wearing was very fitting for his new age, but not for the brave dwarven warrior Muradin that she had heard so much about.

"Oh, it's alright Muradin, you don't look bad at all"

"Looking bad is the least of me problems lassie, do ye have any idea how annoying it is to be a teenager dwarrf? Ye thought I was shorrt when I was an adult? Look at me!"

Muradin took some steps closer to Saki and forcefully pulled her by the waist closer to him. Seems that he did not realize his major trespass of personal space.

"I don't even rreach to yer waist line anymorre! People could actually confuse me with a... oh no! A GNO--"

"Ah ah, don't you dare finish that sentence Muradin Bronzebeard! That's the kind of talk that got you into this mess in the first place."

The now young dwarven hero released his guardian angel and angrily punched one of the alley's walls, the stone crunched and cracked beneath Muradin's meaty fist.

"This wasn't parrt of the deal! Is this some sorrt of sick joke that angel is trrying to pull on me?"

"Believe it or not, Muradin, this is for the best. Besides, if it makes you feel any better I think you look... well-"

"Whut are ye mutterring now lass?"

"That I think you look kind of cute! gigglegigglegiggle"

The mighty dwarf glowered heavily to the slightly blushed Saki, putting his best "That's the last thing I wanted to hear" face. He sighed in distress looking first at the hole in the wall that he just made and then back to his rejuvenated hands, despite their sudden decrease of age they were still his hands, warrior hands. He smiled, at the very least he had lost none of his power.

"Allrrigth, let's do this!"

"Glad to see that you still have your spirit Muradin"

"Yeah, yeah enough chit chat, give me sumething to do!"

"Very well then, since you are so excited about this whole thing let me tell you what do you need to do; in a minute or so there is going to be a disturbance in the city bank your future friends being the heroes they are, will more than likely try to quell it. Your job is to go aid them and after that persuade them into letting you join their team."

"What ye mean by saying I have to help them? Can't they do it by themselves!?"

"More than likely not, you see I know there will be a disturbance because Tyreal told me there would be one, he probably dispatched some desceased warriors to gain their attention and I think most warriors from this realm will have little chance against Azerothenian soldiers"

"Oh that's just grreat, I get to double as a bloody nanny....well I'm off then"

"Wait! I think that you know that telling any mortal here about you being a reincarnation and being from Azeroth and all that good stuff will compromise your mission, right?"

"A'courrse I know that, yer forrgetting that it's me werre talking about, not some bloody noob!"

"But still I most take some precautions.... oh yeah! You should also not tell anyone about you being a dwarf, elves and orcs and dragons don't exist in this world, well at least not anymore so therefore if anybody asks tell them that you're a....uh.. a scott!"

"Ah what?"

"If they don't believe you just tell them this:

(with the best scottish accent a japanese girl can muster) IT'S A KILT!!"

"It's a kilt?"

"Yes perfect! You even got the accent right" claps excitedly

"Uh..."

"Well now that that's settled you should hurry or you're going to miss all the fight!"

The now very excited angel girl forcefully turned a bewildered Muradin around and pushed him in the direction of the bank, that was now on fire, with such force that it sent the dwarven hero tumbling half way through the street barely missing a speeding fire truck that was just now making it into the scene.

"Agh! That girl packs quite a punch"

He stood up straight and as he was prepearing himself for the oncoming onslaught he caught a glimpse of five rather peculiar characters, three of which were flying entering the bank. He stood there for a second astonished and then getting a hold of himself followed them inside the building

Inside, the footman with the mace was barking orders to the other soldiers that were destroying everything that crossed their paths

"Allright you men! We have our orders, cause as much structural damage as you can!"

An orc riding a huge wolf, sliced through the reinforced vault door with his machete sword, giving the impression of a hot knife through butter.

"Finnally something I'm good at! RRAAAAAAAA!!!!"

It apperead that all was lost for the Gotham bank, already the vault door had been sliced on half and much of the citizen's hard earned money was flying everywhere. Though it seemed that none of the bandits were collecting any of it, the great bulk of their energy was bent on destroying everything as fast as they could. But when no one was expecting it, yet another explosion shook the building, this one drawing the attention of the robbers.

A group of strangely dressed kids confronted the pillagers, defiantly standing in somewhat of a pose as if to attract as much attention to them as possible. It was indeed working because all raiding activity from the outlaws stopped and was directed to the young newcomers, their attention was mainly drawn by the girls that were levitating. Yet the boy that appeared to be the leader of the group stepped forward.

"You guys missed the Reinassance festival by a couple of months, you know?"

The sergeant took one good look at Robin

"Is that so? Well, at least we made it in time for the circus eh, boy in tights?"

General laughter was heard from the bandits, and to much of Robin's annoyance he heard some snickers from his own group as well, no doubt coming from Beast Boy and Cyborg

"Ooh, man, he's _so gay._"

"GRR!! That's it! Titans attack!"

"Stand your ground boys!!"

At his command, the Titans charged into battle pouring down on the bank robbers like an enraged mob. Starfire and Raven shot from the relative safety of the air to their earthbound opponents targeting those that appeared to be the cavalry of the group, two huge green monsters with swords riding wolves the size of cows and some knights on horseback, while Beast Boy and Cyborg confronted the infantry consisting of some armor clad men and a group of greenskined monsters much like their wolf riding counterparts but these ones wielding big double blade battle axes.

Robin was then free to attack the sergeant, who just stood there banging his spiked mace on his shield tauntingly.

"ARRG!! What is thou doing Ragnar!? Dost thou not see we are being attacked from above? Ensare those witches post haste!"

One of the knights on horse screamed at one of the monsters riding a wolf as he was being blasted by Stafires' energy bolts, the creature whose apparent name was Ragnar pulled out a big steel made net and started whiriling it above his head, the dark sorceress noticed this and tried to warn her friend

"Starfire look out!"

"Huh?"

Ragnar threw the net to the air, aiming it to the orange skinned girl, it succeded to find it's target and twirled around Starfire's body immovilizing her and causing her to fall to the ground with the grace of a sack of potatoes.

"Now, run her through!!"

The knights fixed their lances on Starfire and were about to impale her but where thrown out by the tail slash of a green Tyrannosaurs Rex, who then reversed back to Beast Boy. The shapeshifter ran to the alien girl and attempted to untie her

"This net is too restricting! I am unable to break loose"

"Don't worry, I gotcha!"

Unfortunately he did not notice one of the axe wielding warriors running to him and then sucker punching him on the side of the head, his brutal strength being more than enough to leave the shifter seeing stars and planets.

"Sorry about that little brother orc--AAAHH"

Cyborg blasted the monster with his sonic cannon away from Beast Boy and Starfire and was sligthly amused by the fact that they just called his friend an orc, he was sure to put that joke into use after the battle.

"O.K.! Who else want's some of this!?"

"FOR LORDAREON!"

His cocky remark left him wide open for one of the footmen to rush him and crush him on a wall, using his shield much like a bulldozer. The same footman was then hit square in the helmet by one of the broken pieces of the vault door, which was being controlled by Raven.

Meanwhile, Robin and the sergeant were squaring off, but not before the boy wonder interrogated his opponent like every other new attacker of his city. He had the strange tendency to ask questions to any new villians that appeared in town for some reason.

"So, new guys huh? Who exactly are you?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing, you wouldn't happen to be Robin would you?"

"Yes, I am and I'll make sure you'll remember me well"

"Bah! You're very annoying for a snot faced brat in a clown outfit"

"I tend to be annoying to newbies like you"

The sergeant was somewhat shocked that Robin just called him a newb, it had been some good 30 years since the last time somone had called him a rookie. Dying in the battle of the orc homeworld Draenor's apocalyptic explosion, he had more than gained the experience necessary to notice that Robin was just trying to make him spit out some information.

Knowing that there was no way he was going to reveal that he and his men were emissaries of the gods, he decided to shut the kid up.

"Poor choice of words my boy, draw steel!"

He didn't wait for Robin to reply and charged at him, the Titan's leader swiftly dodged the charge and pulled out his quarter staff

"Ah staff? Pfftt! That's so boot camp"

"You'll not be laughing when you see what I can do with it"

"Try me you little punk"

The sergeant took a swipe at Robin with his mace but because of it's cumbersome weight was easily dodged by the young martial artist, in a counter attack, Robin used a sweeping kick on the seargent which in turned blocked it easily with his enormous shield and caused Robin's attempt of attack to backfire. He ended up hurting his foot by kicking the seargent's shield.

"Ouch!"

"HA! Not so tough now are ya, kid?"

"I haven't even started yet,"

In another effort to beat his adversary Robin jumped a great height and brought his staff down on his enemy, again the soldier simply blocked it with his mace and took the opportunity to bash the hero with his shield. Robin took the full blow but managed to somersault back and landed on his feet. It was then that he used one of his many other artifacts to aid him, he pulled out of his belt a throwing device in the shape of a bird and skillfuly sent it flying towards the knight, beneath his helmet the seargent smiled.

"Bad move, kid"

The sergeant quickly locked his shield on the ground, and leaned it to an angle. When Robin's missle crashed on the bandit's leader shield it rickocheted and bounced back directly towards Robin, leaving him with no time to react, his own missile got him straight on the face knocking him down on the floor. He heard the sergeant's heavy armored footsteps walking to his position, and then felt a heavy boot pinning him down to the ground and saw the obscure face of the villian looking down at him, his helmet and armor only made him appear more malevolent.

"There, that will learn ya not to call me newbie" snorts and then spits

Seeing that he had beaten his young contrincant, sarge looked across the destroyed and flaming bank looking how his men were faring. The scene that he beheld was a pleasent one for his cause, his soldiers were almost bursting with morale and had sucessfully beaten most of the Titan's forces, the orc infant (Beast Boy) and the orange witch were either unconcious or inmovile, and the two remainig heroes were locked in a loosing fight with the rest of his men.

The rouges seemed to be really enyoing themselves even as Raven sent huge chunks of cement at them and Cyborg kept them at bay with his sonic cannon they cheered and laughed as they fought and closed in for the kill.

"Yeah, Get 'em!!"

"HAR HAR!! We kills you dead real nice!!!"

"They're too powerful, we're not going to make it!"

"You better not go dying on me Raven, c'mon we can still take 'em!"

Robin could barely see how his friends were being beaten, it was hard to believe that his team would be deafeted by a mere group of bank robbers, their attacks had come too quickly to think of a plan B and Robin had underestimated their prowess. He had failied not only himself, but all who trusted in him, his friends his mentor his--

"For the Bronzebearrds!!"

"What was that? AGG!!"

Robin suddennly saw how a spinning hammer smashed into the sarge's face, not only knocking his helmet off and sending him flying but also succesfully unpinning Robin. He looked around for the one responsible for this action and was a little bit confused when he saw, standing there at the bank's entrance, a boy no taller than himself, with a confident smug smile on his face. He barked some insults at the remaining bandits and made them momentarily forget about their mission to destroy the Titans and instead attack the newcomer. They quickly sorrounded him, and Robin scrambled to his feet triying to get up to save him, but before he could do anything he witnessed how the kid created a big warhammer out of nowhere and raised it above his head,

"Eat thunder clap!! Ye sods!!"

With a heavy heave the child smashed his warhammer into the ground with such force that created a huge blast that completely obliverated the sorrounding floor where he was standing along with the bandits that happened to be standing there. They and their mounts gave agonizing cries of pain as they were enveloped by the blast and fell almost in one movement, battered, unconcious and for all purposes defeated

"Was that all? Lemme see four footmen, four grrunts, two knights, two wolfrriders and one sarrge? What the bleeding ale werre those guys thinking sending them at me like cows to the slaughter?"

Muradin swept some dust of his new stylish clothes and walked over to a very bewildered group of Titans, he looked around and spotted Robin, scoffing a bit, he extended a hand offering Robin some assistance getting up.

"Ye took quite the beating therre, didn'tcha lad? Ye 'ought to be morre carrefull in this buissness"

Robin took his hand and was back on his feet.

"Thanks we appreciate the help, excuse me I'll be with you in a moment"

With that Robin ran over to the bleeding knight sergeant and grabbed him by his armored collar to start interrogating him before the police arrived, while he was doing so Muradin found himself sorrounded by the other Titans who looked at him with some sort of discomfort.

Except Starfire who went straigth to grapple him in a crushing bear hug.

"Oh thank you so much for coming to our aid we are ever so grateful!"

"Wow! Easy therre lassie, yer gonna break me back!"

"Dude Dude!! Your accent, that's like soooooo cooooool! Are you like a pirate or something!?"

Almost out of thin air Beast Boy appeared a black pirate captian hat, with a white skull painted in the middle and putting it on he began talking to Muradin as if he was in fact a buckaneer.

"Arr me matey! Shiver me timberrs! Firre on the poop de--" wimpers

He was interrupted by Muradin smacking him in the chin, causing Beast Boy to bite down on his own tounge, incredibly Raven actually smiled at this.

"Thank you... I was hoping someone would do that"

"Ye blitterring idiot, I'm not a pirrate I'm a dwa.. oh wait, I mean a scott!!"

"Really? Prove it then"

Cyborg looked down menancingly at the miniature warrior, the android was not very intimidated by Muradin because of his pathetic height. Quickly all eyes turned to the dwarf who began sweating heavily and tried to remember what Saki had told him before.

"Uh... ummm..... It's a kilt?"

"Well, good enough for me,"

"Yeah aren't scotts always saying that?"

Muradin let out a relieved sigh, apparently these "heroes" well not very well versed in cultures different to their own, for they were easily fooled by such a half-baked idea. Only Raven narrowed her eyes but decided not to say anything.

As the rest of the Titans encircled the tiny warrior, Robin looked directly at a very badly wounded footmen sergeant and started interrogating him.

"chuckling You did good kid... cough! Not bad for a rookie, not bad at all... cough cough!"

"Fess up! Slade sent you didn't he? I know he's still out there!!'

"Listen up kiddo... I don't have much time... you... have... no idea... what's coming to you..."

"Oh no, hold on- an ambulance is coming, just hang on!!"

Before Robin could turn to get some paramedics, or even Raven he was grabbed by an armored hand who strongly held him in place

"NO! Listen....it's only....just beginning....I have to....go home "

"Wait, the only place you're going is to a hospital and then to jail"

But even as the Titan's leader uttered his response, he felt that his hand actually went past the knight's armor, the man that he had just confronted started looking traslucent and was slowly banishing into thin air. Then finally, much like a ghost would he disappeared leaving his last words hanging in the air.

"Be....careful....."

"Magick...."

Taking some steps back and wide eyed, Robin saw to his great surprise that the man that he was just talking to was gone, and looking back at the smoking crater that the kid had created with his hammer he also noticed that the rest of the outlaws had also disappeared. The young martial artist pondered a little at this as he saw how the kid that had helped them out was poking Cyborg's leg.

"Say, that's some fine suit of arrmor ye got therre lad"

"This ain't armor! This is a cybernetical enhancing human core with a Titanium aliation base"

"Ah what now?"

"It's my body"

"Oooo.... poke poke still rreal nice"

Wondering how that child just waltzed in and took all the robbers single-handedly it occured to Robin that this was no coincidence. Some one had set them up but he was not exactly sure why, most likely the newly hammer wielding boy was a pawn of yet another devious plot to bring the Titan's down but who was behind it all? Slade? The H.I.V.E.?. He could not think about it any longer, police sirens and firemen rushing in to quell the flames caused by the long gone attackers interrupted Robin's train of thoughts, he acted quickly and went where his friends and the new guy were.

"Raven, teleport us back to the tower, we have to let the authorities take care of the rest."

"Sure...."

"Oh, hold on therre laddie, I was hoping ye would.."

"You're coming with us"

"What!?"

"Rreally? (Damn that was easy)"

"You sure about that Robin?"

"Just get us out of here before the fangirls arrive"

Crinching at the thought of signing autographs Raven quickly enveloped all six of the present in an eerie black blanket of darkness and vanished them from the spot, just as the local militia and rescue teams could attend to the wounded and put of fires before they spread to the rest of the city, surveing the damage a grizlied veteran fireman muttered,

"Kids nowadays"

"AGH! I hate teletrransporrtation!!!"

All five members of the Titans stepped back from the place they just appeared and saw how their diminute savior stumbled a bit and fell flat to the floor with a _thud._

"I'm allrright"

"Yo Robin"

The android that was Cyborg leaned closer to his leader's ear and whispered,

"What's the deal bringing this guy with us?"

"I'll tell you in a moment Cyborg, I think I know what I'm doing"

"You think? That's reasurring"

Taking some steps forward, the masked boy waited until the dwarven child was able to get up. He was a strange sight to behold, the kid was well Beast Boy's size, the shortest of the team, but was very broad shouldered like Cyborg and his somewhat fancy clothes could not hide the extremely well built muscles that he posessed. All in all he did not appear very frightening, in fact at best he was laughable, with his dirty blonde hair tied clumsily at his back and a goatie growing in his chin like some desperate attempt to show manliness.

It was his bronze skin that caught Robin's attention however, it was a deep shade of bronze looking like mud than spent a lot of time sun bathing, it almost looked like he was indeed made out of the metal, if the boy wonder had not seen him move he could have sworn the newcomer was just a statue. One could very well describe him as a living, breathing, life size bronze figurine. Clearly he wasn't human.

"First of all please let me thank you in behalf of the team for the rescue back there, it was quite a show"

"Yes! We are most thankful for your rescuing prowess"

Starfire clasped the small kid's hands with her own as a gesture of her appreciation. Much to the revived warrior's discomfort

"However I need to know who are you and what were you doing there"

"Me? Well lad..I uh....was just passing by and well.. saw the firre and decided to check it out"

"smirks You are lying"

"Yeah, even I can tell he's full of it"

Backed up by Beast Boy, Robin's confidence soared and took another dead stare at the short adolescent.

"I'm going to ask you again, why were you there?"

"taken back Hey! I don't need to be thrreaten by the likes of ye, I say you people should be thankful by me showing up like I did. Why if it wasn't for me those highwaymen would have slaughter the lot of ye!"

"Please Robin, do not be so hard on this gentle child he has indeed saved us from a gruesome fate"

Seeing that his first persuasive methods to make the visitor tell the truth had failed, Robin decided it be best to take another shot at it later, away from Starfire's interventions and when he would not guard his words so closely.

"You're right, I'm sorry"

"Ha! Bullcrrap I risk me heine to save ye and that's how you repay me? I'm getting the hell of herre. Good day"

Turning to leave in a rather nochalant way the dwarf was stopped by Robin who grabbed him by the shoulder. This was just what Muradin was hoping he would do.

"Wait just a second, you will have to excuse me but I have to take some precaussions when I talk to someone that it's not from my team. We have had some other..... misshaps in the past when dealing with strangers. Please let us start over, I'm Robin nice to meet you."

Now, Muradin was no aristocrat but he could reacognize eloquency when he saw it, and Robin was pretty damn good at it. Either way, even if he had been a complete idiot he would have accepted his invitation to start over, for it worked more to his favor.

"Allrright, well met Rrobin, let me intrroduce meself I'm Murradin Brronzebearrd and uh..I'm fairrily new to this rregion could ye help me out a bit?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"I'm looking for some blokes called the Teen Titans, ye wouldn't happen to know them rright?"

"Dude! Of course we know them that's us"

Beast Boy suddenly cut his leader's response by saying this, making the dwarven warrior sweat a bit he was expecting a difficult quest, but now seeing that he might spend some time with this group of people made him doubt about his ability to pass this test

"(Crrap I was afrraid of that) Oh yeh, I hearrd of ye quite a bit, mighty strange group of lads are ye not?"

"Well I don't know about that Muradin, you're pretty weird yourself"

"HA! I like yer sense of humor lad, that was quite a good one (filthy bastarrd)"

It was a good thing that none of the Titans could read minds, if not they would have been showered by insults about them, their relatives and in some cases even their pets. Muradin was not liking the situation, none of the one's present appeared to be someone that the dwarf thane will like to get to know.

"So, why were you looking for us Muradin?"

"Oh well, ya know I hearrd that therre werre some herroes arround 'ere and I'm one meself, a prretty bloody good one too, but ya know I've being worrking solo for a bit now and it's not my thing. So I hearrd that over herre therre was a decent grroup called the Teen Titans and I said to meself 'Say Murradin that's the kind o' people ye want to be sorrounded by, 'cuz therre bleeding Titans!' So whaddaya say lad? Would ye let me in this little team of yers?"

Even before Robin or any one else could utter a response, Beast Boy shot out

"No way dude!! We don't accept bullies here! My tounge's still hurting from that smack you gave to me back at the bank"

"Beast Boy"

Suddenly Muradin grew increasingly red almost to the point that smoke was coming out of his ears, that was the last straw, he had it with the little annoying runt

"YER WIMPERRING SICKENS ME!!! I have never seen such a pathetic excuse for a so called "herroe" in my entirre life, ye sniveling bastarrd better shut yer trrap beforre I'm forrce to burry my axe deep within yer skull!!! You nausieting half-brred yer father was an orrc mongrrel and yer mother was an elven whorre ---UUURRGGG!!!"

Almost as soon as he had finished that sentence a red light sorrounded Muradin, pulling his body downward and then going through the floor. The sensation was horrible, never had he experienced such inmense pain before, it felt like if someone had just sucked ten years of his life right out of his body. Bending a bit he clutched his stomach and wrenched his teeth, Robin looked at him wide eyed and then asked.

"Uh, you okay there Muradin?"

"I need to go to the loo"

"The what?"

"THE CRRAPER MAN! THE CRRAPER!"

"Oh oh the bathroom? Is right over there"

"Thanks!"

Rushing toward the direction Robin pointed, Muradin ran holding his stomach all the way and entered the room at an incredible speed for his short legs. Thus, he left the Titans momentarily.

"So what do you guys think of him?"

"Oh he is quite a bit hot tempered but I do not mind at all, if he wishes to join us I say we should not restrict him to do so"

"Man I say forget him, we don't need no jackass cramping our style"

"Yeah are you really going to let him in after he talked to me like that? Dude, I didn't even understand half the things he said"

"Hmmm....what about you Raven? What do you think?"

"Yay......more idiots...."

Raven stated lastly with no emotion whatsover. Robin looked at his teamates' expressions and comments and even despite he had a well thought out plan, he decided that in the end it should be the team as a whole that decided this matter.

"How about this? Let's have a vote, who says Muradin should be left out"

Cyborg and Beast Boy raised their hands in the air

"There's no way I'm putting with _another_ antisocial"

The android extressed the word another as he looked to Raven, she barely noticed but both Beast Boy and Cyborg heartedly burst out laughing and then high-fived.

"O.K. now who wants him in?"

Starfire shot her hand upward immediately and then was followed by Robin himself.

"YAY!!"

"No offense guys, I do know that we shouldn't be taking people in like that after the whole Terra incident. But if he is in fact just trying to infiltrate us, I already have a trap set up for him, if he isn't a spy then I have to admit he did a heck of a job back at the bank"

Now that they were tied, the masked Titan's leader turned his gaze at the dark cloaked girl.

"We have two against and two in favor, it's up to you now Raven"

"sigh I already had my mind set to vote against, but I like not agreeing with Beast Boy so I'll say... yeah, let's let him in"

The Tamarenian girl gave a bone crushing hug to Raven when she heard that she had in fact agreed with her and Robin.

"Oh this is an ocassion for much joy and rejubiliation!! Yet another friend!"

"Ung! H--help me!"

The other two that had disagreed didn't seem to mind it much, there were still some chances their leader would change his mind about the whole subject.

Inside the bathroom facility of the Titans, Muradin was drenching himself with water from the faucet. He was not very surprised by the technology of the bathroom, his race's engineers had long invented aqueduct facilities that transported water much like the faucet that he was using. But in reality he could not care less, his main concern was now to aliviate the pain that he had just experienced.

"Man o' man must have been sumething I ate"

Closing the handle to make the water stop running, Muradin gave an aliviated sigh as he no longer felt pain. He looked infront of him and saw his reflection in the mirror. As expected he at first thought that someone else was with him in the room and almost created another stormhammer, but then remembered that it was just him and relaxed, he could still not get over the fact he was now a hundred years old which was eighteen for humans. As he stared at his childlike reflection he was startled by a womanly voice coming from beside him

"Naughty naughty Muradin"

"AAAHH!! Who the!!??"

Saki, his guardian angel was standing beside him leaning on a wall, looking somewhat dissapointed.

"Whut the bloody 'ell arre ye trrying to do? Kil me again!? And just how did ya get in herre!!??"

"Silly Muradin, I do not belong in this material plane I can move wherever I please astraly, but let's save the lesson in the time continuum for later shall we? I came here for more serious matters"

"Being what?"

"You just lost a level"

"HUH!? Then--then that was the thing that was hurrting me? But why? Whut did I do?"

"Oh please Muradin, do you really think that your little 'your father was an orc mongrel and your mother was an elven whore' of yours wasn't in the least bit insulting?"

"Come on! That was just a slip up, the kid was getting on me nerrves I didn't mean it!"

Muradin's girl guardian shook her head as a gesture of dissaproval, she was expecting much more from the mighty legendary dwarven thane.

"Lord Tyreal wishes to speak with you"

Saki took from her pocket a well sized golden medallion, which looked quite simple without any engravings or carvings. However, it's lustrous cover soon transformed into a crystal which showed Muradin's judge Tyreal and beside him his inept attorney Virgil who almost got him sent to hell, behind them was a cloudy background.

"Hey man! How's it going down there? Getting to know da ladies!?"

"Shut up Virgil!"

Tyreal, Muradin and including Saki all said at once at the brown robed man, who only closed one eye and shielded his face with his arms as he grinned, obviously pleased that he had annoyed all three of them so easily.

"Ahem, Muradin Bronzebeard"

The archangel Tyreal began to speak making his voice deep and authoritarian raising his arms and tentacle-wings trying to make himself appear more powerful. However, he suddenly stopped and then letting his shoulders drop he spoke again with a normal voice.

"Never mind, I'll make this short. You are in serious trouble, losing a level already makes me think that you do not realize the severity of your situation. Do you forget that if you fail, your soul will be sent to eternal torment?"

"Agg, ye know what? Hell doesn't sound as bad as staying with these runts"

"Oh really? How's about a little demonstration?"

Tyreal snapped his fingers and in flash Muradin saw how Virgil grew wide eyed and was sucked down by the floor, one second later he was violently pushed back to Tyreal's side not being his usual self but turned into a traumatized sniveling wretch.

"S-weet---he--heaven!! Faeries--e--every--where!"

When the dwarf Mountain King heard that could be sent to a place where he would be sorrounded by faeries he panicked. Faires to him represented everything that is not dwarven, with their butterfly wings and their non-violent attitudes and worst of all, no alcoholic beverages! Oh the thought shook Muradin to the very core, it was his own personal hell.

"Wait! I'll trry harrder I swear it! Just please, don't send me with the faerries!"

"Very well, resume now your quest, Muradin Bronzebeard, and keep this medallion- it will tell you what is your current level if the need arrises, go now and do your best"

"I--w-ant--my--bl--blankie"

Virgil's last words were lost as the medaillion closed and went back to it's original golden form, this time with a big golden "9" incrusted within it. Because he didn't like using jewerly and he didn't want to cause any suspicion among his new teammates about how he got ahold of that medallion, he placed it deep within his pants's pockets.

"Good luck Muradin" BAM!

With a powerful push, Saki sent Muradin blasting out the door and into a wall just before desappearing. The Mountain King was left much like a tortilla before he pried himself of the wall and infliated himself to normality.

"By Magni's bearrd! I wish she'd stop pushing me arround... literrally"

Pulling himself together he walked back to the living room were he had left the Titans, adjusting his clothes and cracking his bones back in their respective places.

He found them all seated around the kitchen table, discussing among themselves and preparing some food after a long day of fighting evil. The great ordeal had taken them to the end of the day, it was only that morning that Beast Boy and Cyborg were chasing each other throughout the tower and now the sun was setting and night threatened to reign supreme.

Muradin approached them no longer looking sick.

"Sorry 'bout that lads, I must have eaten something that didn't agrre with me"

"This shall certainly agree with you, friend Muradin, as I have prepared a special dinner in celebration of your arrival, please eat until... how do you say? Your heart is happy?"

"Your heart's content"

"Oh yes, that is correct"

Robin corrected Starfire while he was examining his food, it looked quite nasty with a strange assorment of different plants and other stuff floating among a purple looking substance that had the maleability of jello. Muradin took a seat between Cyborg and Beast Boy also looking strangely at his food but even more strangely at the Tamaranian.

"Thanks... uh... what did ya say yer name was?"

"Oh that's right. I forgot to introduce you the team Muradin,"

Standing up, and relieved somewhat that he didn't have to continue his Tamaranian dinner in the spot, Robin began naming the Titans one by one.

"As you already know, I'm Robin. The two at your sides are Cyborg and Beast Boy"

They greeted him somewhat aloofly as they were stuffing themselves with food, which it didn't matter much to them that it was made by Starfire, when either of them was hungry taste had little meaning.

"Yo" munch munch

"Yeah. I'm Beast Boy. Don't waste the name."

"The one that made our dinner today is Starfire"

"How do you do?"

"And uh... did I forget anyone? Oh yeah, sorry, she is Raven, Muradin"

".........." silence

That was not necessarily the warmest welcome Muradin had ever received, only the girl Starfire seemed to have any interest in him whatsover, he wasn't quite sure what she was, he had never seen any race with color skin as orange before, perhaps she was some kind of troll. The human boy Robin was keeping a close eye on him, but he decided it was the initial mistrust that a new member of team must receive. The one called Raven didn't even wave at him, Muradin was beginning to wonder if she was some sort of undead warlock, after all, she was the one that teleported them there. Cyborg, the hulking big human, was the one that Muradin saw any sort of promise, he had the look of a warrior and his body armor was nothing but impressive he would make sure to see his potential later.

However it was the green-skinned kid that made his stomach churn. At first Muradin thought he was a goblin, but his features were much too fair like that of an elf. It was his belief that maybe he was the spawn of an orc and and an elf mixture. Hence why he called him half-breed, he was not saying it out loud but the very notion of being sitted next to such an abomination was making him slowly lose control of his rage. The very thought of an elf and an orc mating was sickening to him not to mention that Muradin hated them both with almost equal fervor.

"Hey check this out!"

Beast Boy grabbed a handful of the purple substance that he was eating and sent it to the air, he quickly transformed into an elephant and sucked it by his nose, then he turned into a whale and spitted it out by his breathing hole again into the air, reassuming human form Beast Boy opened his mouth wide open to catch it. Yet in a horrible turn of events it changed course and landed right on Muradin's face, covering the rejuvenated warrior with purple stuff and Beast Boy's internal fluids.

"Oh man! I almost had it"

"Hey no playing in the table!"

Much laughter arose from the adolescents, instantly Beast Boy and his pal Cyborg made fun of the dwarf's misfortune strangely followed by Starfire who giggled and caused Robin to lose his composture and laughed with the group. Raven even, had choked a bit in her tea at the scene and was barely holding her laughter by covering her mouth with her hand.

The sound that came from the dwarven fighter was one that sounded like the enraged growl of a demonic ogre being hit in his toe by a sledgehammer.

"....ggrrrrRRRRRAAAAAA!!!!"

His outburst silenced the table and while they waited for the worst, the middle child of the Bronzeards stood up angrily and quickly grabbed more of the Tamaranian food.

"EAT THIS!!"

Tossing a big chunk of it at Beast Boy, the shifter managed to dodge it and splattered Raven all over her face.

The group was now filled with gasps, the rest of the Titans knowing very well the sorceress does not appreciate that kind of behavior and the new Titan frozen by the fact he might have just angered an undead warlock.

"Holy shit dude"

"Hey lassie I didn't mean to... WOW!"

Uncanningly the dwarf dodged a plate filled with Raven's food which was sorrounded with an eerie darkness and instead got Cyborg, who then smiled and screamed,

"FOOD FIGHT!!!"

Chaos broke out as Cyborg counterattacked by sending more food towards both Robin and Starfire. Who then took cover behind their chairs as they defended themselves, striking Muradin once more.

The dwarf now smiled, feeling the rush of mock battle going through his veins, the battle raged on across the room as all the Titans utilized their powers to aid them in the food fight. Beast Boy turned into a gorilla and sent even greater amounts of food towards his teammates, Starfire bombarding them, Robin dodging and striking like a true martial artist, Cyborg filling his cannon with purple ammo and then shooting it, even the melancholy Raven was somehow half-heartedly taking part of the game, mainly controling the remaining chairs to block the projectiles sent at her. Amidst the battle, Muradin was reminded of the fun times he and his brothers had while having the same fights at dinners in Khaz Modan, it had been so long since those times, leaving his childhod behind early to become a Mountain King and fight the orcish Horde at Ironforge Mountain's steppes.

But now he was a child again and he felt the long-forgotten sensation of playtime with friends, but still used a Mountain King's skills effectively as he threw food with both hands much like he would throw his stormhammers, knocking down any unfortunate Titan who wasn't fast enough to dodge it.

Some moments later, the room lay destroyed and all Titans except for their new addition were exhausted.

"HA HA!! Come on ye nancy boys, is that all ya got?"

"Muradin... please... you win"

"Calm down already"

"Oh, I guess I got a wee bit too excited"

"Well that's was some dinner, but I guess we have to start cleaning now"

Their leader Robin started directing his fellow Titans to clean the mess that they had done, but somehow Muradin felt very light-hearted. When he had thrown that filthy looking food at Beast Boy he was intending to hurt him badly, but now he was amazed at the turn of events that his less than good intended actions had caused. When the Mountain King kid had meant them harm, they responded cordialy, Muradin still possesed his dwarven pride and he was not about to let such good people be so amigable with him without a proper reason.

"Oi'! Since I'm the new guy arround 'erre. Why don'tcha let me take carre of that for ya?"

"You wanna clean all this by yourself!? Are you sure?"

"Shut up Robin before he changes his mind.... Sure dude, consider it your initiation"

"Ah! So that means that yer going to accept me as a Titan after all!"

"Eehhh.....D'oh!"

Beast Boy gave a crude imitation of Homer Simpson as he messed up, it was obvious that the dwarf had noticed the shifter's dislike of him, his little trick going amiss and landing on Muradin was no accident, but now he had almost given his blessing to his entrance.

"That's alrright me laddie, no need to get all worrked up about it"

"Muradin, why do you keep calling us "lads"? Your no older than any us"

"Oh, well ya see... that's... because... well..."

"Don't try to understand his jigs Robin, must be something them scotts say, right dawg?"

"Umm..Yeah! We scotts say that a lot (that was close!)" sweatdrop

"Well anyway it's getting late and we have to get up early tomorrow to test Muradin out, maybe you could sleep in Terra's room"

"GGRRRRR!!!"

The one that Muradin thought was a half elf half orc, quickly turned into a really big timber wolf and growled menancigly at his superior, he wasn't going to allow a stranger to sleep in the room of the girl that he had once cared for.

"I mean....uh...do you mind sleeping on the sofa?"

"Allrright! I get to sleep on some sorrt of furrniturre today! YYIIHHAA!!!"

"Right...I'll take that as a yes.... (I'm sorrounded by a bunch of weirdos)"

"That's it I'm out! Y'all discuss waaay to much, sleep tight"

"Yawns Oh I am deeply sorry, but I too am in dire need of some rest"

"No morre talking from any of ye, off ya go now to bed"

Almost pushing them all back to their respective rooms, the legendary dwarf was left alone to clean all the mess they had done earlier. At the end of what seemed almost minutes to him the room was left sparkling clean. Not surprisingly, Muradin had cleaned even bigger messes before and that was almost child's play to him, which would be considered fair play now, seeing that he was now a kid. Sighing as he finished his task he placed the mop, bucket and all the other cleaning utensils, including the hankerchiefs he used to clean the mess from his face, and allowed himself to fall on the sofa.

As he did he felt energy surging from his body and was enveloped in searing light, bewildered at what had happened, he reached at inside of his pocket and looked at the medaillion that Saki had given him. It now had a big "10" inscribed.

"I LEVELED UP OFF OF THAT!!!??"

The mighty warrior rested his head in the sofa's pillow and lastly stated weakly before going to sleep

"How embarrassing"

Dizzied May: Or some corny shit like that.

Dizzied May: They are so in luuuuuve...

El loco: He has not realized he doesn't have his axe yet

Dizzied May: EEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! vomits Ewewewew, dude that is sick.

So 'der ya have it, the first chapter of my twisted attempt of a fan fiction

A little resume in the characters I used

**The Protagonist Muradin Bronzebeard**for those who have not played Warcraft III he is a dwarf heroe, which in the game are called Mountain Kings, who trains and is then murdered by this human prince named Arthas...which later kills a whole bunch of other people in a murderous killing spree. But that's another story, Muradin basically lives in this planet called Azeroth which can be easily described by saying that: It's inhabitants are freaking crazy seeing they wage war with each other all the time, and when I say all the time I mean it. To make his story short he is just the middle child of the governing family (the Bronzebeards) and he lived in the mountains of Khaz Modan in the city of Ironforge.

Yeah, I know it's complicated but come on I'm trying my best here I had to make a Fan fic of him because one: There are no Fics of him and two: he's my favorite character of the game

Closely followed by Garithos...............We humans have to stick together (just a thing he says)

**The Steel Angel Saki** she is a character of an anime series I like, called Steel Angel Kurumi.

The first time I watched the series, I was simply fascinated by her persona and somehow began idolatrating her almost religiously. Also I began pondering about how to make a fan fic of her

**The Archangel Tyreal** if anyone took the time off to read my worthless other fan fiction, it would be noted he was also making a guest appearance there as well. Tyreal is a character from a game called Diablo II, his character was appealing to me because he was the only angel that participated (or at least tried to because he got his butt kicked) in a war between mortals and hell. I mean really! That was supposed to be a battle between Diablo himself against the world and Heaven does nothing? So any angel that has the brains to get off his high horse and help out humanity is allright in my book

**The Teen Titans **O.K.!! HOLD ON NOW!! If I have to explain to you who are this guys maybe you shouldn't be in this section! After all that's why I placed this story here so I wouldn't have to explain the ENTIRE TEAM!!! You Savvy?

**Virgil** a minor character from a game called Arcanum, he was at first a ruthless gangster who became a priest. Obviously this change left him a little unbalanced because he acted nothing like your average, "Holier than thou" monk. But in the end somehow saves the world giving his life and goes to a happier place. I say somehow because I could NEVER BEAT THE DAMN GAME AND HAVE NO IDEA HOW HE DID IT!!

So now that you know all this, let's just say that I decided to save time by mashing them all in one fan fiction instead of one for each of them. Yeah I know I'm a genious

I am working on the second chapter as I write this so hopefully I will not let you guys wait long, for those of you who may read this.

REVIEWS ARE WELCOMED..NO WAIT APPRECIATED....DEMANDED!

PLEASE REVIEW MY STORY IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY PATHETIC EXISTANCE IN HILLBILLY VILLE!!

Gracias! nn


	2. Quests

Muradin: Welcome everryone to the second chapter of me fic. I know ye most be wonderring, why the bloody hell is Muradin doin ansewrring reviews isnt that the authors job? Well yer rright but El Loco had a major breakdown wrriting dis cuz it was too long and he had to move and he was about to get deporrted and stuff so now Im calling the shots

Anyway quat do we have here?

To Anonymus: Well yer ugly, NEXT

To Rouge Chimera26: Hello and thanks fer sayin this be orriginal, I wez wonderring if I had appearred on other fics but now it seem I wez wrrang. Beast Boy is gonna have a big parrt on this chap so take a good look and no, yer not the only one that notced bout the whole Raven sayin something that kinda sounds like Azerroth, it helps but yer gonna have to wait till next chap to see the frruits of yer advice. Also, did ye juss say Ya Murradin?

El Loco: No I believe she said Yay Muradin

Muradin throws hammer at El Loco

El Loco: AGG! My face!

Muradin: Donna tell me how to prronounce me own name boy! Anyway NEXT

To Khellendros: Quat a weirrd name. Aye it is bloody hilarrious and good to see yer havin fun at me misforrtunes. About yer quibble of the Warrcrraft soldiers I can explain, we bez some very though mo frrigs. Have ye seen us on action lad? A footman can take a frreaking mountain gigant blow with a trre trrunk and still fight! I bet not even Cyborrg can take that without flinching

Wheww! So many reviews I better not have answer morre than one next or Im gonna charrge extra. Well enjoy

The air is somewhat refreshing when it blows across the steel covered faces of a numerous batallion of small armor-clad bearded men.

12th regiment of Ironforge's army stands ready to defend their homeland from the rampageous orcish Horde. Word has it that the enemy is sending reinforcements through the dwarf held lands that connect the orc encampents to the human kingdoms. The dwarves having no love for hostile intruders will fall upon the invaders with all their might.

Whatever might they have left for the battered crippling regiment is one of the few that has survived the orcish rampage. But still stands defiantly as the roar of war drums approaches them.

"They only outnumber us ten to one, what arre ye worring about?"

Muradin said to his younger brother Brann as he saw him quivering clutching his blunderbuss rifle tightly. Seeing that his older brother was making fun of him, he quickly changed to a position more suited for military.

"Quiet in the rranks! Two hundrred meterrs and apprroaching!"

Their commander, the very heir of the crown, Magni Bronzebeard shouted out to his fellow soldiers. Desperate, or even mad, could be said about their strategy, to gamble the entire dwarven bloodline in one final brave attempt against the invaders, they would win or die trying. Muradin clenched his teeth as he saw how the Horde reinforcemts saw that they would have to fight in order to keep going and then heard the blow of a horn signaling for the orcs to attack. In unison the warriors of the Horde battlecried and charged at the dwarven defenders.

"Herre they come!"

"Allrright lads! Let's show this overrsized goblins not to mess with the dwarrves of Irronforrge!"

"AYE!"

Came the call of the dwarven soldiers as they closed ranks and prepared themselves for the fight. Already could they see the savagery of the orcs and trolls charging at them feeling the ground quake at their lumbering steps, the ogres leading the charge showed no lesser fury as they swung their gigantic clubs in the air.

"Fix bayonnets!"

"Rready!...Aim!...FIRRE!"

The explosion from the dwarven infantry shook the sorrounding mountains and hills, as they sent fiery death to the invading army. Falling orcs, ogres and trolls alike, still the Horde charged on trampling the corpses of their bretheren as if they were nothing, in retaliation the troll axemen sent volleys of throwing hatchets at the dwarves killing a few unfortunate and wounding others as well.

"CHARRGE!"

Soon after, the remaining dwarves ran at their agressors, colliding in a blood splattering clash of steel and armor. Muradin had soon lost sight of his brothers in the confussion and swung both hammer and axe at the enemy soldiers, throwing a stormhammer at a huge two-headed ogre that was about to crush him, decapitating both his heads and killing him instantly. Trying to defend his people as best he could he placed himself in harms' way to save other soldiers, but his selfless acts were repaid with a big wolf rider pouncing him, he swung his axe in a savage arc and chopped the wolf in half along with his rider, but the frontal part of the animal still fell on top of him.

Giving into the weigth of the beast his eyes stared at the great ferocity of the animal, even when severed of his lower extremities the wolf still radiated unearthly fury as it opened his mouth to...

lick him?

"Huh? Whut the.."

Waking from his dream, Muradin fluttered his eyes open as he felt a slick, cold tongue caressing his face. When his eyes opened there was a monstrous looking worm, smiling at him with a mouth full of fanged teeth.

"Eh...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Filling the entire Titan tower with his scream, an alerted Robin rushed to the living room followed closely by the other Titans to find their new addition, the kid that called himself Muradin Bronzebeard, running around with his war hammer pounding at the floor.

"What's going on?"

"Quickly! Therre's a bleeding monster rrunning arround 'erre, kill it!

The larva shot out from beneath the sofa and crawled at Starfire's leg, quickly strapping itself on the Tamaranian's back shaking in fear.

"Don't move lass! I'll get it!"

Frantically the dwarf jumped in the direction of the orange girl trying to bring his hammer down on the worm that was using her as a shield. He, however, was quickly stopped by Starfire's open palm motioning for him to stop.

"HALT!"

The Mountain King froze in mid air, losing all momentum causing him to fall flat on the floor

"Please do not be disturbed by my pet Silkie, he means no harm"

"That's yer pet? It looks like something that crrawled out of a madman's nigthmarre"

"It did in a way, it used to be a henchman... err... henchinsect to a villian that we fought some time ago. It's really harmless now Muradin, you shouldn't be afraid of it"

"I wasn't afrraid of that thing Rrobin! I... just... don't like being awaken by stuff licking at me face!"

"Sure, dude"

Beast Boy made a mental note to creep Muradin out by turning into their pet maggot.

Having some laughs and now fully awakened by the short warrior's screams of terror, the Titans all walked passed in front of a twitching Muradin in direction for the table. As they did the dwarven fighter overheard a sarcastic comment.

"Being afraid of Silkie... gee... that's really manly, Muradin..."

"You shut yer mouth you... uh... What's yer face?... Crrow?"

"The name is Raven"

"Aye, sumething like that"

The pale sorceress gave the dwarf kid a snarl in response and then abruptly left for the table.

"Do I at least get half crredit? It's not like I called ye Lizarrdman or sumething"

He was a little taken back when Raven just completely ignored him and prepared a beverage for herself then quickly left to a more secluded spot. Muradin, in fact, was no jokester but he had a sense of humor and had only tried to lighten the mood, but the ghostly girl was acting as if he had just spat on the grave of her ancestors.

"Man, what's wrrong with her?

"Don't take it too hard dawg, Rae is just a little mmhhh... how can I put this on a nice way? Unstable."

"What ye meaning by 'unstable'?"

The cybernetic teen that Muradin was talking to placed his big jug of orange juice on the table as he tried to explain her dark teammate's attitude. It was not an easy task to do so and it took a little processing for Cyborg's CPU brain to think of something.

"A'ight, ya know when you fill a balloon with too much air it explodes? Well, Rae's powers, I hear, are controlled by her emotions. If she gets too excited and fills herself wth more air than she can take, KABOOM! She explodes an I'll tell you right now, you don't wanna see that."

"Her powerrs? Ye mean to tell me she's not a magician?"

"No, I mean yeah... look man, I dunno, Starfire's the one that hangs with her more often- try asking her."

The before mentioned Starfire was overhearing their argument and gracefully turned as she heard her name said.

"Oh yes, friend Raven has revealed to me all her very traumatizing childhood experiences, her human mother wed a demon named Trigon, who gave her a very tortured life as an infant."

"Whaaaaaat? SHE'S A HALF-FREAKIN'-DEMON!"

The astonished Muradin looked at the Titan's leader, Robin, very troubled. He apparently was acting very calm even as he was hearing their conversation, merely staring at some bread jumping out of a toaster.

"Ye knew this?"

Robin turned around with a piece of bread in his hand and responded while munching on it "Wha-? Raven being a half demon? Sure who doesn't? Oh well, I guess you"

Muradin's jaw dropped at this indifferent statement.

"How could ye bear worrk with a demoness?"

"She's not that bad really, never whines about orders unlike Beast Boy."

"Hey, I heard that!"

"No! No! That's not what I mean! I'm saying that how can you -a human- worrk with her -a demon-?"

As he stared at the blabbering dwarf and chewed the rest of his toasted bread, Robin arched an eyebrow as he began to realize what Muradin was saying.

"Oh I see, you're mad because of what she is. Look, Muradin, everyone that works for the greater good is welcomed in this team, regardless of what they may be, humans, shapeshifters, androids, aliens, demons..."

"Leprechauns" added Cyborg

"I know yer not talking 'bout me"

"I'm just messin' with you man"

"But what Robin says is true, friend Muradin, it is the differences of people that makes this universe as bright and colorful as a rainbow! Yay!" She then stood in one foot and raised her arms outward

Starfire drew unwanted attention to herself as she stated the most corny remark anyone there had ever heard uttered, her teammates stared at her questioningly until the new Titan broke the silence.

"What arre ya? The bloody rray of sunshine?"

"I do not know, is being a bloody ray of sunshine good?"

Bronzebeard decided to drop the subject right there as he could see no way of getting past the enormous naivete of the girl. He was beginning to understand why he was sent to this place in the first place. Tyreal was right, none of them had any similarties whatsoever, not even so much as the same tastes, at first he had felt that he didn't belong there but now he really thought none of them belonged there, how on earth did they even become a team?

"Allright listen up guys! I said yesterday that we were going to give Muradin a test run so finish up your breakfast and meet me outside Titan Tower ASAP. No excuses, that goes especially to you Beast Boy"

"'That goes especially to you Beast Boy'-nyah nyah"

Robin's statement was repeated in a mocking way by the orc-looking kid, who then proceeded to raspberry him. His leader disregarded it entirely and hurried on to the outside.

"Well, might as well get me some brreakfast 'fore I'm impress you all with ma' moves"

Bragging a bit the dwarf titan started to look for something that looked edible, he found some strange-looking ingredients no doubt belonging to the overly-optimistic Starfire, some things that looked like meat but tasted like plants which he spat the moment he tasted them and some bags of tea. Annoyed that he could not find anything he said out loud,

"WHERRE'S THE POP?"

Outside the tower a warm breeze blew and the clear blue sky showed that the day would be a fair-weathered one. Waves calmly reached the shore giving a very relaxed environment, all which would soon be shattered by the inhabitants of the tower.

"Perfect."

Robin grinned as he examined the wind resistance and other assortment of factors that would affect their trainning, he stretched and warmed up as he waited for his teammates to arrive. He didn't have to wait long.

"Booyah! I beat y'all again!"

"Hey check it out I didn't came in last this time"

Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire all came running outside with the cybernetic titan coming in first closely followed by his other teammates, far behind came their recent aquaintance, Muradin, who was breathing hard and gasped for air as he stopped.

"Currse this shorrt legs"

"What's the matter dude? I thought you were saying you were tough."

"Rrunning's never been my thing I'll admit it, can't quite keep the key if ya know what I mean, but just wait 'till ye see me in action. I'll sock the color rright outta yer skin!"

"Worry not of this defeat friend Muradin, there are still many opportunities for you to kick the butts!"

Cyborg smacked his own face, as he heard Starfire's poorly worded statement.

"Let's see, is everyone here? Where's Raven?"

"Present"

The necromancer girl teleported in as she heard the summons. Now that they were all outside Robin was free to initiate whatever he had in store for the new titan, Muradin Bronzebeard. The titan commander started pacing back and forth as he spoke,

"Titans, listen up! Since you already know our training course was completely trashed by Terra when she was trying out for the team!"

Muradin motioned for Cyborg to lean down so he could whisper to his biological ear,

"Psst! Who's this Terra everryone keeps talking about?"

"Long story- I'll tell ya later"

"But despite all that, I think we can manage for Muradin here to show us his potential without the need for equipment... Titans! Sparing formation!"

When he issued that order, Robin and his fellow 'Titans- with the exception of Muradin who had no idea what was going on- quickly jumped to the sides and surrounded the dwarven kid.

"Quat the bloody hell are you playing at?"

"Just a friendly sparing match, Muradin"

As he said this, Robin unseathed his metallic quarterstaff and smiled.

"Don't worry, I promise not to hurt you really bad"

"By Magni's twin axes, I'll make ye rregret that!"

The young Titan leader used his quarterstaff as a pole, and by using the impulse of the jump he tried to drop kick the insulted young dwarf. Unfortunately for him, Muradin grabbed Robin's leg in mid air and by sheer strength alone slammed him into the ground.

"Woow... That gotta hurt dude"

"Oh Snap!"

Robin quickly retaliated, impulsed by the embarrassment Muradin caused him in front of his underlings, and tripped the young Mountain King with a swift sweeping kick making him fall flat on his back.

"AGH! Ye crracked me neck!"

Getting up with a backward roll, Muradin rammed the Titan leader with a head-butt directly on his gut. He lost most of his air and staggered a bit trying to lean on his staff for support, leaving him wide open for the new titan to bash him on his side with a tremendous lariat punch throwing him to the ground. Dazedly, Robin got up.

"O.K. I think you're pretty good... but how about two on one?"

"I'll do what it takes!"

"Good. Raven, Beast Boy!"

Unpredictably, Muradin was enveloped in sand and rock debris which was being controlled with dark energy. He tried to shrug it off as best he could, but was more concerned about a big green ape charging at him and then pounding him on the head.

His blows had little effect on the mighty Muradin and he soon grabbed the transformed Beast Boy by the arm and sent him flying toward the sorceress who lost control of the sand that was annoying the dwarf.

"They'rre youth is no match for my experrience" Muradin muttered unaduably to the others.

"Ung! Get off me Beast Boy!"

"I'm going! Geez, it's not like I was enjoying it"

While Robin was studying the new recruit moves he noticed how Starfire was now blushing as she stared at the short hero.

"Amazing! He defeated Robin, Beast Boy and Raven simultaneously without the need of a resting period. He is very powerful indeed"

Noticing that he had made a little admirer, Muradin closed his eyes and flexed his right muscular arm in modest arrogance, which made Starfire giggle girlishly and blush even more.

Robin turned a deep shade of green with envy.

"Oh yeah? Well how about this? Titans! All five of us attack!"

The titan trainee quickly opened his eyes as he was blasted by a Cyborg's sonic cannon. Taken by surprise at this drastic change of strategy his new allies took, Muradin scarcely dodged more incoming emerald missiles but was cut short in his escape by a charging green rhino.

Now Bronzebeard had taken into consideration that this was a sparing match and therefore did not use any of his skills, such as stormhammers. But he quickly lost the check of his anger and appeared on his hand one of his deadly war hammers.

"NOW IT'S HAMMER TIME!"

Slamming the ground with his weapon, Muradin was able to free himself from the grip of the earthbound titans. However, his attack had no effect on either Starfire and Raven who were flying and utilized their combined powers to blow the dwarf out of the ground. Shaking his head to recover his senses, Muradin was able to send his stormhammer toward the flying girls, he aimed it right at the middle of the two so that only the explosion would affect them and cegate them momentarily.

But as he defended himself from his airborne agressors, he was once again confronted by the other Titans, who were quick to dog pile him before he could create another warhammer. Beast Boy turned into a grizzly bear first, Cyborg second and at the top Robin. Only the struggling hand of the Mountain King could be seen from beneath Beast Boy's green fur.

"Onetwothree! We win!"

"O.K. guys I think he had enough, get off him"

When they got off the dwarven Titan, all could see that he had been flatten to the ground to the extend that he now resembled a piece of paper. Cyborg picked him up and snapped him to his original form. Groggily, Muradin was able to say,

"I'm allrright! Why'cha stopping for? It's not like I was suffocating or anything!"

"No need for more Muradin, you have proven your worth."

Muradin now saw how Robin took his hand and gave him a strange artifact that was unknown to him, it was a circular object portraying a big "T". The Titan's leader saw the eyes of confusion in Muradin's face and said,

"That's your communicator, you can transmit messages to any Titan now"

They shook hands.

"Welcome to the team"

The dwarf thane now gazed at his new item and before he could react, was taken by the neck with a powerful metallic arm and recieved a nugie in his head.

"What's the matter tough guy? Surprised that we just kicked your butt?"

Taken by surpise by Cyborg, Muradin tried to break free from his grip but was soon quelled by Starfire who started tickling him mercilessly. Embarassed beyond measure, the new titan could do little to escape and was only free when Cyborg allowed him to go.

"Get yer hands offa me alrready!"

"Is little Muradin angry because he lost? Boo hoo hoo"

Turning red by Beast Boy's taunt, he was quick to shove him like he was strying to steal his lunch. Suddenly realizing he was just falling into their game, he tried to act mature for once since he was getting too much into his new age.

"This wouldn't have happened if I had me axe over herre, I only got mugged 'cuz I was weaponless"

"Yeah, excuses excuses" Beast Boy got up as he said that "I know what's wrong with you, you're mad because you're stuck with a crappy super strength power, unlike me"

The green kid turned into an assorment of different beasts just to show off.

"Who can turn into any animal"

"Listen bairn, I donna have any super strrength. The only thing that ye could call a power is to make mine storrm hammers 'erre"

He created one to demonstrate his skill, and showed it to all the present.

"No way dude! Then how come you were throwing us around so easily?"

"The hammerrs are bleeding heavy"

Muradin tossed one to Cyborg, who caught it and promptly made both his arms fall off leaving a well sized crater as they landed in the soft beach's soil. Leaving everyone there wide eyed, except of course for the stoic Raven who couldn't care less and was more than ready to go inside the tower as the radiant sunshine was annoying her to no end.

"Great, can we go now?"

"Sure I guess the training is over"

"Quat? It canna be over I just got starrted!"

"There's a training room inside the tower if you're really restless Muradin"

"No need for that Rrobin. I donna need more trraining, what I need is an axe! Do ye know were I can find one arround 'erre?"

"An axe? I don't think there's a place were you can get that, unless Cyborg could forge one"

Both Muradin and Robin turned to look at the android teen who was just screwing his arms back in place.

"Me? Forge an axe? I'm a mechanic, not a blacksmith!"

"Well in that case we're out of luck, and why on earth do you want an axe anyway?"

"'Cuz I canna fight well without one, those storrm hammerrs I use arre only therre temporarrily and dissapear after a while, if ye rreally want to see ma' true potential ye'll help me get an axe. Apparently I lost mine original one"

"I would like to see that, really, but I don't know were to find one"

In that moment Starfire suddenly started jumping up and down with her hand raised in the air, waving it frantically. Her unecessary enthusiasm being more than a little uncomfortable.

"I know! I know! Please select me!"

"Star?"

"I belive I have seen such weapon at the mall of shopping"

"NOOOO! NEVER!"

All eyes turned to Raven who started screaming like a banshee, teeth bared and eyes glowing a diabolically red. Her dark magic creating a cloak of black flames around her.

"The sky will rain fire and brimstone before I go to that accursed place again!"

Raven was engulfed in her own black magic and teleported out of sight, probably back to the tower. The Titans looked at each other still too shocked by their teammate's sudden reaction. Muradin, who had being on a guarding stance when Raven began screaming, relaxed a bit and scratched his head.

"Umm, does she do that often?"

"Only when something doesn't agree with her"

"Which is almost everything!"

"Silence Beast Boy!"

Starfire silenced the goofball of a shapeshifter and then levitated her way infront of Robin, her hands clasped together as if pleading to her leader.

"Please, Robin allow me to talk to Raven, I am positive I will be able to convince her to go with us."

"Star, you shouldn't worry about it I can just take Muradin and--"

"NO! I wish this to be a group experience! I will not allow our new friend Muradin to get the wrong impression of Raven!"

Stomping her foot on the ground, the Tamaranian's eyes glowed an intense emerald color when she contradicted her superior, all the male titans including their new member slowly took some steps back for fear of being hurt by Starfire's radiant energy. Robin quickly covered his face with his arms.

"Okay! Okay! Convince Raven if you really want to!"

"I thank you."

The green energy that once surrounded the alien girl immidiately dissipated and gave way to a cheerful smile that went across her face as she took flight and entered the tower in search for her darker teammate, leaving Robin to wipe the sweat off his forehead and the rest really perplexed.

"Well lads, like they say "men arre naturral warriorrs but a woman in the battlefield is trruly bloodthirrsty""

"Yeah and we got two examples of that"

"And the scars to prove it"

The team shared a smile, as they decided it was best to wait inside the T shaped building for their other companions to resolve their before argument.

Muradin now found himself pacing along the long corridors of the Titan Tower, it had not being an entire day that he had been there and his mind had already charted most of the building. He was quite pissedoffish by the arquitecture of the structure, being a dwarf that was the first thing he took into consideration, it's strange shape not only was ridiculous to his eyes but he also saw quite a few strategical flaws on it as well. The dwarven warrior decided that it would not be able to stand a seige for a prolonged amount of time and could not imagine as to why it was still standing if it meant to a defensive post of some sort.

"It's tower design is usefull only as a bloody watch tower" he concluded "And the stone that is made of leaves much to be desired, quat kind o' crrappy masonarry is this?"

As he commented on the state of the wall, he pointed his index finger to the wall and then actually dug a hole through the solid stone with a mere forward movement of his finger without even straining. When he took his finger out of the perforated wall he noticed how the damged stone crumbled to dust on the floor.

"Yo! Who's messing with my room?"

An automatic door quickly gave way to the behemous Cyborg who looked around the hall and spotted Muradin looking perplexidly at the android and then back at the hole he had made. He realized too late that he had been poking a hole on his new teammate's room, and Cyborg approached him with an annoyed expresson in his face.

"Woops! That was yer rroom?"

"Yeah, it was and I don't appreaciate people drilling holes on my walls either."

Cyborg took a closer look at the hole that Muradin had made on the wall, it was perfectly circular except for the numerous cracks around it that spread out to cover it to it's extentity. As a whole the structure seemed ready to collapse because of that single strike

"Dang boy! What did you use to do that?"

Twitching a bit that he had just been called a boy by one that the dwarf would consider a mere infant, Muradin was a bit hesitant but decided to show how he had easily perforated the stone wall with his finger.

"You did what?"

"Aye, I was testing the maleability of the stone, and then it sorrt of... crrumbled"

The cybernetic eye of the Titan buzzed and blinked as it processed the data that it was receiving. No wonder he couldn't lift the hammers that the newcomer had tossed at him earlier, at first he had taken it that he was merely taken off guard. Surely he had the strength to lift a little hammer. But now that he had seen the how easily Muradin had pierced solid rock with his finger, he clearly saw that he was in a higher level than most.

"So.. uh what were you planning to do right now?"

"I was just wanderring arround while waiting for the otherrs to take me this 'mall' place, so I'll just be on ma' way"

"Oh no you don't, you ain't going nowhere poking holes in the wall like that, you're staying right here. There's enough destruction around here as it is and I am getting seriously tired of rebulding the place every damn day"

Taking the dwarven Titan by the collar, he partially dragged him and then tossed him inside his room with surprising ease, apparently even though the inmense strength Muradin possed he was of average weight and could be moved around pretty easily. Especially because of his short stature, Cyborg calculated that he weighed no more than a 100 pounds and short as he was he could have easily fit on a suitcase.

"Agh! Throw me like that again and I'll hammer ye down!"

"Chill man, I'm just making sure you don't cause any more trouble. More than likely I'm gonna find out later that Raven blew up some big chunk of the Tower and guess who has to clean up after her mess? Why don't you just make yourself comfortable?"

"Like if I could get-- Hey! Is this the forrge?"

Muradin's face lit up like a boy recieving a new toy, as he looked around Cyborg's room anxiously, obviously thrilled to see so many metalic objects at the same time

"Uh... no it's my room, I know it looks more like a hangar but I need all this stuff"

His words fell on deaf ears, as the diminute fighter was running up and down examinating all of the android's possesions until he stopped right before touching Cyborg's oversized stereo.

"Heeeeeey, you mutha, no messin' with my tunes!"

"Tunes? Ye mean to tell that contrraption plays music?"

"Yeah... haven't you seen a stereo before?"

"(Oh crrap) Eh... a'courrse I've seen one... of those... just... uhhh... not... of that kind, yeh that's it, that one it's strrange to me ye sure it worrks?"

"Look I'll show you" Cyborg started flipping through his enormous collection of CD's and pulled out one "Here, you like MC Hammer right?"

"A quat hammer? Is that a tool hammer or a war hammer?"

"No, MC Hammer didn't you say 'It's hammer time!' earlier today?"

"Yeh, but that's juss' sumething I sa', I didn't know it was said beforre me."

"Man, have you been living under a rock?"

Cyborg pressed a button on the gigantic apparatus and a little tray slipped out of it like a tounge, he then placed a circular shiny object and it and the device swallowed. This was somewhat confusing for Muradin but curiosity got the best of him and stood his ground watching the scene develop. Soon after a deafening sound started booming from black circular holes that were inserted in the machine, the walls trembled by the sheer potency of the music. An infectious rhythm, intoxicating the airwaves with the fast beat that caught the dwarf's mind under the somewhat hypnotic voice of a man going "Can't touch this".

"Huh... that's a Paladin song"

"Pala- wha?"

"A paladin song, I think I hearrd one of 'em singing that when he had a divine shield... thing... never mind." Muradin noticed that he was drawing only a blank stare on Cyborg and trailed off.

However, unknowing even to himself, the Titan android began tappin his foot to the beat. Suddenly letting himself be carried by the song Cyborg began walking backwards sweeping his feet on the floor as he did (moon walk) and continued to do so, humming as he went, to the center of the room were he stopped and starting spinning his upper body in a 360 degree angle while leaving his lower extremities still, at the sound of the man on saying "What's the time?" Cyborg stopped and jumped coming down with a leg split saying "It's hammer time!"

"Uhhh..."

It was then that the robotic sensors of the android targeted the confused look of the new Titan, who was open mouthed and pupils dialeted with a mixture of both fear and surprise. Cyborg, embarassed to the extreme, got up and tried to come up with an excuse worthy to explain his behavior but was halted when Muradin's expression went from one of incredulity to one of flared anger.

"Bah! Ye think those arre good dancing moves? Ye'll not be impressin' anyone breaking yer legs like that, I'll show ye, step aside!"

Shoving Cyborg aside, Muradin stepped in the room's center waiting for the man that was singing to start his continuous "Can't touch this". When he did the dwarf Titan moved his left arm in wave motions that continued through his shoulders and ended on his right arm, and then followed by somersaulting back and landing on a hand stand, using his head as a base he propelled himself with his arms to spin around with great speed, after he had done about ten turns he stopped and jumped back on his feet quickly pulling a storm hammer banging it on the floor just in time to say in unison with the singer "IT'S HAMMER TIME!"

Just then, both dancers heard a clearing throat sound and looked at Robin who was standing by the entrance.

"Were you two just... break dancing?"

"Ah! I... he started it!"

"Oh ye lying piece o'-"

"Forget it! Listen I just came by to tell you guys that somehow Starfire managed to get Raven out of her moping and she is going to go now, but Star seems to be kinda pushy on this and wants us all to go to the mall now for some reason."

"Sure, I'll just get my car started I had to go get some stuff over there anyway"

"Great! I'll head for the workshop rright away, donna worry I know werre the siege engines are kept, can't miss the bloody things they're huge"

While both Robin and Cyborg still wondered what Muradin was talking about, for little did they know that their new arrival from Azeroth called all cars "siege engines", he hurriedly left the room obviously excited to get himself some weapons. However, as Robin turned to follow he felt a metallic hand hold him by the shoulder.

"What is it Cyborg?"

"Uh... could you... you know, not tell any of the guys about the whole break dancing incident?"

Robin smiled somewhat sinisterly "Sure, you just make sure you don't get on my bad side" B/N #1

On their way to the mall the group of Titans all sat in their usual places, Cyborg obviously driving being rather over protective of his baby, Robin sitting as co-pilot, the other three sitting in the back with Beast Boy in the middle of the two girls. There was however no space left for Muradin so he reluctantly agreed to ride on the trunk of the car. That left him staring wide eyed at the outside, he had not seen much of the city in his one and a half days of being dead in Azeroth, and because of it there was still much left unseen of this new world. All in all the drive was pretty much uneventful with all what could be called normal going on, Beast Boy's merciless pranks and others in fighting, the newcomer kept to himself for most of the drive except when the Tamaranian turned her view backwards and tried to spark conversation with him.

"So tell us more of your homeland new friend Muradin, how is it where you come from?"

With his eyes still fixed on the outside, Muradin responded without looking back at the alien girl.

"Ehh, it was quite a crrazy place"

"What was it that made you leave it and come here?"

"Let's just sa' I got forrced to leaving and now I canna go back. Think sumething like being exiled"

"I am deeply sorry about that, it most be hard to leave home in such a manner"

"BAH! Sad 'bout leaving that hell hole? It was ma' home, trrue, but endless warrfarre is no way of living for anyone, I've taken so many lives and donna feel bad 'bout it, that it makes me shiver at my own crruelty"

As he spoke the chatter from the others died down until only Muradin's voice and the car engine were the only things heard, Starfire just kept looking at the back of the dwarf, and then gasped as he suddenly turned around to face her. His eyes, even as they had a boyish energetic light about them, reflected the countless battles he had been through. The Tamaranian, sensitive as she was, cringed back a little bit, feeling the raw brutally this new friend of hers emitted. The Azerothenian quickly realized he was drawing too much attention to himself and stammered,

"But ya' know that's the kinda stuff ye do when yer a hero rright? Let's not talk 'bout sad things anymorre, like I said I'm not even going back therre again so what am I worring about?"

"Well... I would still enjoy going to visit there sometime"

Turning back again Muradin muttered "Perrhaps, in some strrange twist of fate ye might go" then he added with a whisper "and lose yer sanity while yer at it."

There was silence for the rest of the ride.

At last they arrived at what Starfire clumsily addressed as the mall of shopping. Even as they entered the gates of the building a strong shudder was visible within the dark sorceress Raven, but even so the Tamaranian girl clasped her hand and hurriedly led her on away from the males of the group, giggling all the way.

"Ack! Wherre in blazes did ye bring me?"

Muradin's companions turned around to face him, he saw the confused looks on their faces and then realized that he was sounding quite ignorant by not knowing the place he was in, there were not really a great quantity of malls in Ironforge or in Azeroth for that matter. Thinking fast he tried to guess were he was so he would not be mistaken for a country bumpkin of some sort.

"So... this be the town's forge, eh? It's bigger than I expected it to be."

"The town forge?"

"I meant to say... the uh... keep!"

"Man, what the hell is he talking about?"

Robin pulled down on Cyborg's arm so he could whisper in his ear.

"That must be how he calls malls"

"Oh, I got you. Yeah man, this is the keep, there should be one of them medieval stores around here and that's were you can get your axe."

"Outstanding! It was about bloody time too, I wouldn't wanna to get caught in an actual fight with only me hammerrs to help me out. Ye know, wouldn't want to disappoint you all"

"Sure sure, listen dude, while you're at it we're just gonna go to the arcade, I hear they got the Soul Calibur game so I'm just gonna kick Cyborg's metallic butt a bunch of times."

"Oh you wish! You know I'm gonna break you in two if I pick Astaroth!"

Both the android and the green kid turned and ran for the elecric stairs while Robin stayed with Muradin so he could show him where the store was. Not wanting to be babysitted around, Muradin dismissed his own new leader telling him that he could go enjoy himself elsewhere. Robin reluctanly agreed and simply pointed him in the direction of the store, as he watched his new teammate leave a familiar feeling crept up inside the young acrobat.

"If he doesn't want me around it must be beacuse he's up to something, no doubt he will try to contact Slade or whoever he's working for, I better keep an eye on him."

Looking around for people Robin awaited the moment where there were less shoppers or mallrats B/N #2 walking by so that instead of using the escalators he nimbly jumped to the second floor were the arcades were. Seeing that he had caused no disturbance and also noticing that he had actually beaten his other two video game crazed teammates, for they were just getting there at the same time he was.

"Wazzup Robin? I didn't know you wanted to play, too B/N #3"

"I don't, I have a little mission for the both of you"

"Oh great, what is it now, oh omnipotent leader?"

"I need you two to keep an eye on that Muradin kid, I think he may be up to something because he told me he wanted to go by himself to the store."

"So? The guy probably just needs some space to find a weapon, you know, maybe its embarrassing to go weapon shopping with another person like you know, shopping for underwear or something."

"True, but it could also mean that he's trying to contact someone without us noticing, if that's so then this is the perfect time to bust him in the act."

Robin's second in command and subordinates looked at each other either wondering if that was just a brilliant deduction from part of their leader or simply pure paranoia.

"O.k. fine, but what are you gonna do while we're over there spying on the guy?"

"I'll just check with the girls to see what they're doing"

"Oh what? That ain't fair!"

"C'mon you two, move it!"

Propelled by the sudden command of their superior the two young heroes scrambled in the direction of the medieval store.

"Allrright lemme see, he told me it was left to the Mc Donald's storre -Eeww that stuff looks nasty- and then forrward past the water fountain and then should be some wherre 'rround herre.."

"Excuse me sir, would you like some free cheese samples?" Came a female voice behind Muradin.

"No, leave me alone, canna ye see I'm busy?" said Muradin without turning around still searching in the direction of the store, this time he felt a slight poke in his shoulder motioning him to turn around.

"I assure you sir that you really want to try this cheese samples," the female voice said once more this time ending the sentence with a giggle. Muradin narrowed his eyes wondering why she was so persistent on giving him food, but decided to comply seeing that he never refused an opportunity to eat. Turning around slowly he said.

"Oh allrright I'm a little bit hungrry- EEEKK! SAKI! I mean... ACK! SAKI! Quat the bloody 'ell arre ye doing 'erre?"

There, standing wearing another strange uniform instead of her maid one, no doubt from a fast food restaurant of some sort, and holding a tray of cheese samples was Tyreal's appointed guardian angel for Muradin, Saki, smiling at him in a charming manner which was welcomed by the dwarven warrior with a scowl.

"I sa', quat the bloody 'ell are ye doing 'erre? I'm in the middle of sumething over herre canna ye bother me some otherr time? Donna tell me I lost any more levels 'cuz it says right 'erre that I haven't!"

Reaching for his pocket, Muradin pulled out the golden medallion that was given to him, it was still bearing a big 10 written on it.

"Please do not grow yourself accustomed to think of me as a messenger of ill news. As a matter of fact I came here only to tell you that I have seen an opportunity for you to gain more levels quickly."

Muradin reached for a handful of cheese and started eating it while staring to his guardian angel.

"Allrright, but that donna explain why arre ye wearring that uniform and giving out free cheese to people."

"This? Oh well, I just got a little part time job here on Earth so I can watch over you better; I figured that staying here and getting an apartment would be easier than going astraly all the time, plane shifting is quite a taxing job you know?" B/N #4

Slowly and very noisily masticating his ill gotten food, Muradin narrowed his eyes at the taller Saki, telling her with his eyes "That is so cliche" to which his celestial guardian responded with a look on her eyes that said, "I know, but Tyreal won't give me any money 'cause he's a lazy bastard." Finally gulping his food the revived dwarf said,

"Anyway, what ye want to tell me?"

"I arranged with Lord Tyreal that if you could do something in particular for your team, then you will be granted much experience. It is a rather simple task, really, but because I know you lack experience in this field it will prove to be a challenge for you."

"Ha! Doubt it, quat could possibly challenge me? I can snap dragon's necks like twigs! Throw anything ye got at me"

"Does that mean you accept? Once you accept it, it will be written on your quest log and you will not be able to back down on it without a penalty"

"Yeh yeh whatever, gimme some 'orre of that cheese" Muradin took another swipe of cheeses to stuff in his mouth, noticing a devilish smile creeping up Saki's face.

"Very well, do not tell me later that I did not warn you. Here's what you have to do, have you noticed how the leader of the Teen Titans, Robin, looks at that girl Starfire, right?"

"Yeh... quat about it?" Muradin started to get the impression he was not going to like this side-quest.

"What you have to do is help them see their true feelings for each other."

The dwarven titan all of the sudden yelled out, spitting pieces of cheese at Saki as he spoke, "YE GOTTA BE FREAKING KIDDING ME! I canna do that kind of job, I'm a warrior blast it all! Not bloody cupid!"

After covering her face with her arm to block the incoming barrage of cheese B/N #5, Saki leaned down on the even smaller than his original self and a very exasperated Muradin to pinch his cheeks.

"Perhaps, but you sure do look as cute as cupid"

Eyes widening and his cheeks ablaze with embarrassment, realizing again that he no longer looked like the fierce dwarven warrior who led his fellow dwarves into battle; Muradin smacked Saki's hand aside and pulled on his own hair.

"Oh, you look so cute when you do that, too"

"Shut it! Allrright! Just shut yer bloody mouth up!"

Placing her index finger in her chin as in thought, Saki looked down at her protegee who had his head down and fists clenched; a heavy drop of sweat falling from his forehead to the floor.

"So what does that mean Muradin, dear? Are you backing out on me?"

A heavy sigh came out from the dwarf's mouth "No, I'll follow through with yer forrsaken quest" he wiped the sweat and swiped Saki's tray for more cheese "It better give me like 50 morre levels 'cuz that's gonna be some harrd shait" Wiping his hands on his shirt he started to leave, but was stopped by Saki who grabbed him gently by the shoulder and turned him around.

"Waddaya want now?"

"Hold on you got some cheese on your mouth."

Very motherly like, Saki wiped Muradin's mouth clean with the apron of her uniform. It took a couple of seconds for the young Titan to react but he soon pulled away looking like if he had just been violated.

"Yer the most bloodiest crraziest angel I've ever seen, don't ye ever touch me again ye hear?" B/N #6

Not waiting for a response Muradin quickly walked away muttering "I'm really gonna need a big axe"

Little did the dwarven titan and his angelic guardian know that they had been watched, for two shadowy figures, one bigger than the other, closely followed Muradin as he walked in the direction of the store tripping on each other as they pursued him.

"Dang it BB! Watch where you're going, man!"

"Well if you had some sort of thing in that metal head of yours that could hear better, we wouldn't have missed what he said to that girl!"

"Oh so now it's my fault? Why don't you turn into a vamp or a dog or something with long ears and listen instead of whining? And even so I'm sure that what he said to that cheese lady wasn't important"

"Dude, dude, you know I can't do that in the mall! Robin told us that we shouldn't use our powers in public places if we're not fighting someone; remember what happened when I turned into a dog and was parading myself in the city?"

Cyborg rubbed his chin as he searched through his memory banks to remember the time when Beast Boy had been dognapped by an alien who thought he was his green dog pet.

"Oh yeah... that was funny."

"Fu-funny! You think being leashed and forced to do cheap tricks for someone is funny?"

"Whatever, look man we're gonna lose him! I told you to stop whining and follow him"

"I'm going, I'm going!"

The android pushed slightly his smaller green friend into the direction where they saw their new addition head off to, the two tumbling spies casted friendly glances at the incognito guardian angel who they mistook for a common mortal; Saki returned their greeting with a smile and a little wave of her hand letting them continue to their buisness.

"Dude, she was hot, maybe Muradin was trying to hit on her"

"Yeah you think he's a player?"

Both friends looked at each other as they entered the medieval store and started laughing as they said in unison

"Naaaa!"

At that same exact moment they heard the scream of an overjoyed Muradin who filled the store with his words.

"Hot diggity dog dang baby! How did ya get so HOOTTZZZZZ?"

"Check it out, Muradin IS a player after all! He's pimping over there by the back of the store"

"Let's go see quick"

Upon arrival, they saw an strangely happy Muradin holding an axe twice his size obvious to any onlooker that he had look through the store for the very best one as it was a double faced, double edged, metal handle one with leather straps for superior grip and with wind cutting holes placed within the blades for maximun speed, no doubt copied right out of Viking design. A/N #1

"Shit, dude he was only talking about an ax"

The dwarven warrior barely noticed that the two were coming as he was caressing the axe blade with his hand, but as soon as he got sight of his two new allies from the corner of his eye he turned around to face them.

"Oi! What'che ye two doing 'erre?"

In their rush to see what was happening they had completely forgotten that they were not supposed to be seen, as they were intstructed to spy on their new ally and not accompany him shopping. The new warrior got a mistrustful face about him, he knew that his companions did not intend in coming here in the first place and was beginning to wonder if Robin had something to do with them being here. He also knew that both Cyborg and Beast Boy were the ones who showed the initial mistrust towards him, not counting Robin and because he did not like the kid who Muradin thought was an elf/orc mix he started scowling and began to grip the handle of the oversized axe tightly. The other two young heroes saw this and started stuttering thinking of an excuse of being there.

"We were just, umm we were... eehehe"

"I canna hear ye, SPEAK UP!"

"We came here to tell you.. that... OH! We came here to thank you for cleaning the kitchen yesterday for us, me and BB hate doing that kind of stuff"

"We sure do"

"And because of it we decided that were going to buy you that axe you wanted"

"We sure ar-- WAIT WHAT?"

The android quickly grabbed his green friend by the mouth and turned him around and himself at the same time, both of them giving their backs to a bewildered young Muradin. Not being able to comprehend that it was on his best interest to let them buy the axe for him because when he was revived he had not brought any money along, turns out that you really need it for the after life after all, Beast Boy started complaining in hushed tones to the taller titan.

"Dude, what the hell are you saying? We're not going to buy him an ax"

"We have to, otherwise he's going to figure out we came here to spy on him"

"But Cyborg, I can't afford to waste money on this I'm saving up for a moped"

"So? I'm also saving up to upgrade my baby, let's put half and half each allright?"

"Grrrrr... fine, but you owe me"

Outside the shopping district sitting near the entrance and looking not much like your average group of troubled teenagers, a strange trio of kids muttered to each other bitterly. An enourmous primate looking guy, with a very developed jaw and hair that reached almost to his waist was hunched over listening to his companions, a girl with pink hair tied into two ponytails pointing violently upwards, her face was one of pure madness and a diminute kid with a metallic backpack, there was something malevolent about his face. Separately they were know as Mammoth, Jynx and Gizmo but they were better known as the top students of the H.I.V.E Academy, an organization led by brother Blood whose purpose was to shape young upstarts trouble-makers into professional criminals, and as such they were sworn enemies of the Teen Titans. By standards only got rude gestures as they passed by the group and kept their distance lest risking being jumped by one of them, but even so the group seemed to be concentrated on the discussion they were having among themselves to really cause trouble with someone else.

"So what are we going to do now? We can't just barge in there and pick a fight with them like that and we can't certanly follow them around either, they will recognize us in an instant" The maniacal looking girl said to her companions.

"Boggers in a stick! If only that stupid 2 byte brain Cyborg wasn't with them I could send one of my inventions and not risk a confrontation"

"Uuuuhhh..."

"What are you drooling about now Mammoth?"

"I forgot what we were doing"

The bigger of the three and apparently the dumbest as well said in an idiotic voice to the others who just facepalmed at his statement.

"How many times do I have to tell you snot brain? The head master told us that the Teen Losers got another member to their group, we're here on a mission to see what's his potential or if he would pose a threat to us and the academy, idiot!"

"OOooh, now I remember! So how are gonna test his mettle?"

"That's the thing we have been talking about all this time, you moron. Weren't you paying attention?"

"Umm... no"

"Didn't think so"

"Ah, wait we're not gonna go there and fight them, are we? 'Cause last time we tried that we barely beat them and if they got another guy with them then makes three against, ummm... one two three... eight!" The one called Mammoth showed both his hands holding ten fingers up to his allies.

"No, you idiot, that makes three against six"

"Oh? Oh yeah! Is that less or more than twenty?"

It could be certain that if their un-intelligent companion was not as big as he was, he would have been strangled in that instant; however his height compensated for his intelligence and his fellow criminals could only feel frustated at his stupidity. After a couple of moments of massaging her templates the pink haired female member of the criminals let out a sigh and then spoke,

"But for all he's worth, he's right you know? We don't stand a chance if they got another person in their team."

"You lard-eating coward! Don't tell me you're afraid of another goody goody two shoes? I bet the whole reason they implemented another member is because they can't handle anything by themselves and for all we know this new guy could be just a stupid trainee not even worthy of our time."

"But he could also be a some one that can bash us into a pulp"

The smallest villian of the group listened at his female teammate's argument. Gizmo being the brains of the group was not the kind of guy who would charge into battle without a plan or odds in his favor; and being outnumbered two to one was something he did not like at all in a fight after he rarely fought unless ordered to or if he had an overwhelming advantage over his enemies. Rubbing his chin deep in thought, he was taken into consideration every aspect of their mission as he would a video game. However he was interrupted by the brans of the team who, after scratching his head for quite a while now, opened his mouth to speak.

"Man, we're gonna need some help."

Before Gizmo could respond another egocentric remark of how he got everything under control, almost as if in cue some feet away from where they were standing an esphere of blue energy appeared out of nowhere. It spiraled furiously and then started shaping out a silouette humanoid in form. When it reached a determined height the esphere exoloded in a flash of light and when the three young villians uncovered their eyes they witnessed a person standing where the energy esphere was before, a person that could very well be described as an alien. The first and most visible thing of the extraterrestial form was his two meter tall height, followed by his golden chest plate and armor pieces that covered his other body parts, he was blue skinned and apparently had no mouth; most noticably, however, where his legs who were bent backwards like the rear legs of those animals who stand in four paws like if he was part animal of some sort.

The villians and some bystander mall shoppers stared at the teleporting alien with awe and where taken back when he suddenly dashed for the entrance of the building, looking as if he was charging at the H.I.V.E. students, who were about to defend themselves until they heard a loud authoritarian voice inside their minds.

"En-Taro Adun Terrans! There is no time to waste, if you wish to destroy your enemies follow me!"

The group stood their ground astonished for a while, not comprehending that they had just been spoken to by a telephat; however they soon regained their senses when they saw that the golden armored alien did not slow down his charge and all three of them quickly jumped out of the way seeing the automatic door slide open to let him in and knock out of the way some hapless bystanders making them drop their goods. For a while the three young villians remained immobile, just sitting there with their mouths open looking at each other wondering who or what was that creature that appeared out of nowhere and started barking orders as if they knew him, until Jinx suddenly regained her nerve and switched to her cynically mad look on her face, doing a spinaronee to get back up.

"Come on you guys, this is the chance we were waiting for!"

She quickly followed the strange creature inside, hitting the same person that had being knocked down by the alien as she went in.

"Stupid girl, doesn't she know it could be a trap? Hey where are you going?"

Gizmo lost all confidence as he saw how Mammoth got up and followed his teammate in, mumbling a dull "I dunno" in reply to his shorter ally's question. The kid got a face of frustrated anger as he ignited his jetpack and did as his other partners in crime and followed the blue man, not before however stopping and pushing down the poor mall shopper who was just standing up after being trampled by everyone already. B/N #7

The creature that had so suddenly teleported was running at a pretty impressive speed down the mall giving big strides and arm strokes taking full advantage of his height to gain velocity, most people were smart enough to get out of his way for it seemed certain that he took absolutely no concideration on the welfare of the people who were minding their own buisness, though he also apparently did not run down anyone on purpose. His velocity spring soon came to a screeching halt as he slid down the waxed mall floor leaving red hot nail marks across the polished surface trying almost desperately to stop, the janitor was not going to be happy by this. The ones responsible for his sudden halt were three odd-looking kids who were just coming out of a shop and quickly turned around to spot him obviously alerted by the commosion.

"Who the hell is this guy?"

"I was gonna ask ye the same thing"

"Dude! He looks just like that alien dude from Clash of the Planets 3rd episode of the second season 'cuz he got the--"

"SILENCE GREEN TERRAN! You are the Teen Titans are you not?"

The three heroes felt a booming voice fill their heads and were slightly shocked by it, not being accustumed to being talked telephatically. Normally, Muradin would have jumped up and started barking insults at the alien, as he did in his old days in Azeroth, but because he felt somewhat unsure of his new body, alligances and not to mention the curse, he decided to wait for Cyborg who was second in command gather his wits and respond.

"Yeah we are, who's asking?"

"I am Fenix! Praetor of the glorious Protoss forces, me and..." Fenix turned his head around and strained his eyes to see if the H.I.V.E. members had accepted his invitation of attacking the Titans and then turned back as he saw the three of them running in his direction still trying to catch up "Me and my Terran allies will destroy you! Prepare to meet your DOOM, TITANS!"

The Praetor, as he had let himself be known, pressed a botton in his gaunlets and much to the surprise of the heroes absolutely nothing happened. Fenix started rapidly and deseperately tapping the button as he muttered telephatically to all the present "Stupid, faulty Psi blades they're always failling me and getting me killed" two claw looking things made out of energy suddenly bursted out of the gaunlets and the alien resumed his little monologue as he repeated "Prepare to meet your DOOOOOM, TITANS!" Obviously trying to save some face.

"Shoo, we don't even need to call for back up to take out this clown."

However, Cyborg's remark was soon proved wrong as the Protoss quickly pounced the group of laughing heroes and started swinging his blades madly at them, they just barely dodged the attack, Beast Boy, being the slowest in his human form, had his chest almost ripped apart but fortunately only got a claw looking tear in his shirt and in his skin as well, some of his blood spilling on the floor.

"AAAHH!"

"Wooow! Never mind!"

"Ack! Defend yerrselfs!"

Beast Boy stumbled backwards and promptly fell, staring at his chest wound in disbelief. Seeing this Fenix very predatory-like closed in for the kill and brought down his Psi claws against the changeling who got but a glimpse of the deadly blade which neared his eye until it was parried by an axe handle; which smacked Fenix's gaunlets instead of the blade so as to not damage the axe.

"Yer gonna have to go thrrough me firrst, mouthless dimwit"

As Muradin and Fenix circled each other observing their respective adversaries, looking for an opening to attack; Cyborg stood back and used his communicator to contact Robin and request assistance while Beast Boy crawled around the fight to recuperate himself and then attack again. But more importantly the H.I.V.E had arrived at the scene and witnessed the unfolding battle.

"Hey, there they are, the guy is already fighting them"

"Don't engage them yet, Mammoth, for all we know it could be mock battle"

"Well, that Beast Boy kid seems to have gotten a pretty nasty cut from our friend here"

"Still, hold your formations bogger brains! We can't charge in without even knowing who the new Titan is"

"Look! It most be that shortie over there!"

Mammoth pointed in the direction of Muradin who had just dodged a claw attack from Fenix, the behemout villian smiled and commented "He ain't look so tough" At that moment their eyes widened as they saw how the Protoss warrior send a flurry of claw swipes at the shorter fighter who merely created a hammer with his left hand to block them all in a sparkling blaze and throwed the same hammer at the alien's face, even though the weapon had exploded in Fenix's face with tremendous force, it seemed to have no effect as a barrier blocked it but it left Fenix open for Muradin to swing his newly-gotten axe across his face which also looked to be futile but when knocked out of balance the Protoss leader recieved an axe cleave on the back of the head which sunk his upper body deep in the floor.

"Ye pasty cur, that all ye got?"

The Mountain King had predicted a come back and quickly jumped out of the way as his opponent got up with an uppercut which nearly got Muradin in the face.

"You do not impress me, warrior, I fear no enemy!" Fenix pulled back to gain maximum impulse in his right arm and threw a punch with all his strength against Muradin, who ducked and allowed the alien's arm to go through a solid wall, ripping through the merchandise of a clothes store. Fenix did not let his enemy counter him and kicked Muradin square in the face before he could retalieate, the dwarf slid across the floor and was catched by Cyborg who then blasted their attacker with his sonic cannon; Fenix took the full blast and was engulfed momentarily in dust which caused the Titans and the H.I.V.E. students to think he was defeated but as the smoke cleared there stood the alien, unscarred.

"For the Khala is my strength!"

Beast Boy now somewhat recuperated used this opportunity to turn into a rhino and try to impale Fenix in his left side, who was chanting or singing a mantra of some sort as he said "I fear not death". The green rhino who was Beast Boy thought he was going to get him unprepared and sped up his charge which proved to be a mistake as Fenix only jumped and kicked the rhino in his back side making him run straight into the already perforated wall completely obliverating it, sending the customers who were inside it running away for their lives. Fenix never stopped looking in the direction of Cyborg and Muradin and as he landed on his feet he finished saying,

"For our strength IS ETERNAL!"

"What is that guy talking about?" Was the only thing that came of Gizmo's mouth as he and his companions witnessed the espectacle, much to his surprise Mammoth suddenly let out a roar flexing his arms and said,

"I dunno! But it's really inspiring!"

He then charged into the fight not noticing Gizmo's remark of how stupid it was to do such a thing, he quickly was followed by Jinx who also disregarded the technological master's orders leaving him grumbling to himself.

"Oh well, better for me the only thing I have to do now is sit back and record all this" As he said he pulled out a camera out of his backpack also pressing a button in his belt which made his backpack sprout out spider looking legs so it would put him at a greater height.

"Rip his arms off!" Came the cry of Mammoth at the same time he grabed a dizzy human-shaped Beast Boy by the back and showed him to Fenix, the alien spun around pleased of hearing that he was finally getting some reinforcements and seeing an opportunity to strike the changeling again he quickly dashed for the green Titan and hit him in the stomach with his odd looking knee, at the same time that he said telephatically to Jinx to cover his back. The pink haired witch did as she was told and sent hex bolts to the ground between her and the two other Titans who rushed to help his friend and ally, respectably (because Muradin did not really like BB that much) the ground exploded in front of them and where briefly blinded by the debris that fell upon their eyes; an opportunity which Jinx used to jump at her adversaries. Just as they were getting their senses back Cyborg was greeted by a raspberring girl in his face, he tried to grapple her but failed as she nimbly somersaulted backwards and shot purple bad luck missiles at his metalic hands which made them malfuction and grapple himself, Muradin also tried to take a swing at Jinx as he swung his axe in her direction but in an amazing feat of dexterity she did a leg split and dodged the attack and as she raised her head to see that the dwarf fighter had created a hammer to strike her in the head she sent a hex bolt into the weapon handle which caused it to break and the head piece to fall in Muradin's head, he cussed and held his injured area as he stumbled backwards.

Meanwhile, Beast Boy was just about in the last brink of his endurance, after being mercilessly smashed in the stomach against Fenix's knee cap; he could not really polymorph into anything to save himself as he was being restrained by Mammoth from behind and the before colission with the wall had left him somewhat dazed, finally he colapsed holding his stomach and gasping for air as both Mammoth and Fenix looked down to see his frail body hit the floor.

"A very dishonorable tactic, warrior, but effective. Where did you learned such strategy?"

"That? That's called street fighting"

"Is that so? I most put such technique into practice more often"

"Uhh... yeah, you should (should he?)"

Mammoth's particulary slow train of thoughts were interrupted by Jinx, who apparently had been thrown off by someone and had gone over Fenix's head and landed in her bigger teammate's arms.

"You guys just don't give up don't you?

Robin was standing in a confident stance while both Raven and Starfire levitated at his back, both Muradin and Cyborg where just getting up from their previous encounter with the bad luck magician.

"Face it, the H.I.V.E. is no match for the Teen Titans" Robin appeared to just notice Fenix standing infront of Mammoth "No matter how many of your members you throw at us,"

"He's not one of us, he's... what was your name again?"

"My name is of no matter, funny-haired Terran! Just keep fighting!"

Unconsiously Jinx curled her lip and ran her hand through one of her pig tails as Fenix slid his foot under Beast Boy and pulled his body up with a kick; he then grabbed him in mid-air and threw him at his companions feet, battered and bruised.

"Here, have your weak friend back"

"We messed him up real good don't you think?"

The leader of the heroic team feeling responsible for the injuries of his subordinate knelt down to hold BB's head

"Are you allright?"

"Dude... what happened?"

"Sit this one out B, we'll take care of it."

"Ooo... fishies!"

Still with his eyes spinning, Beast Boy reached his arms out to catch imaginary animals that were floating about as he was placed down by Robin who looked back at the villians with a scowl.

"Titans Go!"

By this time all bystanders had disspersed, except for a few who were cowering inside the stores, leaving a vast area for the battle to be executed, Gizmo who had assigned himself as a non combatant used the spider legs that were connected to his back pack to jump to the second level of the mall and point his camera at Muradin who was his assigned target. Starfire and Raven were as always raining down missles on their enemies who were mostly annoyed and distracted by them for Mammoth could easily tough them out, Jinx had no trouble at all at dodging them with cartwheels and such, and Fenix was being protected by some mysterious force for they were just glancing off him. It was the ground troops that presented a challenge, Robin pulled out his staff and helped Cyborg defend himself from Fenix who was still attacking like a fanatic; he was giving the other villians a favor as Mammoth and Jinx tag-teamed Muradin which was their first intention.

Unfortunately for them, Muradin just about had it playing with the young criminals.

"UUrrgg! FOR KHAZ MODAN!"

To the great surprise of those who were fighting him and especially for Gizmo who was getting all that on film, the Mountain King had just used his ultimate ability which caused his skin to harden and turn silver like that of metal and his height to increase considerably now being as tall as Mammoth himself; which was a big achievement considering that he was shorter than Beast Boy before that, even his axe had become silver like and increased in size as he did which made him no longer look like a laughable character but an executioner. Out of sheer panic Jinx shot several hex missles at the Titan's back who just exploded without dealing damage, in another deseperate attempt the witch shot the ceiling making it give in to its on weight dropping tons of rock and metal on Muradin; being too big to evade it, Muradin allowed the debris to crash on him. It gave him inmense joy seeing the surprised faces of his agressor's when they witnessed a huge rock crack in two in his head harmlessly and metal support beams bend with loud bangs as they bounced off his metallic shoulders.

"Outta me way!"

Muradin, taking notice that he was giving his back to Jinx, used that to his advantage, for he used that to increase his momentum when he swung his axe at the witch girl; the blade did not even touch her but the full force of wind created by the swing was more than enough to send the light-weighed sorcereress across the room and crashing into the display case of an ice cream store. Mammoth now tried to take Muradin by surprise now that he was giving his back to him, the brutal looking thug sent a punch at the back of the hero's head, a punch that he knew could break through solid steel walls, but as it connected it just made a "thud" sound followed by the sickening sound of cracking knuckle bones. The dwarf thane now annoyed beyond comprehension turned once again to see how Mammoth was holding his fist with an expression of pure pain in his face, Muradin decided to take him out quickly and smacked him with the butt of the axe in the jaw then used the opportunity of Mammoth losing some balance to place the axe head under his foot and used it as a shovel to send him up with an upward motion, the giant brawler made a flip as he was pushed upwards and was caught in mid-air by the waist by the Titan avatar who then pilled drive him head first into the ground. At the same time that Mammoth's colossal body dropped, Muradin placed his axe beside him to wipe his hands clean of dust as he said,

"Class dismissed, I hope ye kids took some notes on that"

All this time Fenix had been holding his ground against the other Titans who were proving to be more than a match for the lonely warrior, Cyborg had already figured out that the "mysterious force" that was protecting Fenix was nothing more than a electromagnetic barrier and not magic as some had first guessed; knowing this he shot an EMP missile at him which made his generator reboot and lose all power making him vulnerable until he could regenerate it again. which obviously was not going to happen as he was being pounded mercilessly from all sides.

"To me my warriors! I need-- Oh no" Fenix's shoulders dropped when he noticed Mammoth and Jinx in painful defeated positions and Gizmo nowhere in sight, because of this he was unaware of a bench that was sorrounded in black energy flying straight at him. It crashed on the side of his head with such force that it was reduced to splinters, more than enough to knock him off his feet and send him sliding through the battle torn floor, strangely enough, he did not land with a loud crash into glass or walls as he was preparing himself to be but instead was caught by powerful but surprisingly soft arms.

"Hello Fenix, any particular reason as to why you're picking fights in this side of the universe?"

A soft female voice resonated in the Protoss' mind, and when he looked up to see who was holding him he was greeted by the smiling face of Saki who had prevented him to crash inside a store filled with cowering civilians, he responded telephatically as well,

"Lady Kotetsu! I was not expecting the likes of you to be here!"

"You haven't answered my question, Fenix"

"Wait! I can explain! It was Lord Tyreal who sent me here, he said I was to be an obstacle for the quest of one of his warriors, apparently he lacks experience or something of the sort"

"Oh! Tyreal sent you to battle the Titans? Hmmm, he most not trust the crime rate in Jump City"

"Pardon me, Lady Saki but do you mind if I ask of you a favor?"

"Don't be silly, of course I don't mind"

"May I take you hostage for a couple of seconds? I am in a little predicament and I think it will help a lot to play the part of the villian"

Saki at first raised her eyebrows not expecting Fenix to request such a thing, having the broad reputation of being an honorable warrior and such, but when she saw how the Titans and Muradin were closing in she understood what he was trying to say,

"I see, sure you can take me prisioner"

"Thank you, how do you Terrans say? I owe you one!"

Before any of the Titans could make a run for the momentarily fallen Protoss warrior, he side rolled and swiftly grabbed Saki by the arm and twisted it in an upward fashion pressing it on her own back at the same time he placed his Psi blade dangerously close to her neck; she yelped and wimpered very realistically when she was held which made the rushing heroes stop dead in their tracks. Fenix looked at the parilized young heroes and shot out at them telephatically, this time allowing them to hear his thoughts,

"Stop where you are enforcers of the law! Or this girl will pay the prize of your recklessnes!"

"Titans stand down! I don't want anyone getting hurt"

Robin motioned to his fellow Titans to cease their attack as any self-respecting superhero leader would do, he would have to try to negotiate with the criminal; Muradin however who was still in his Avatar form could not understand the reason as to why Saki was not doing anything to free herself, he had seen the girl fight and she could at least not act helpless when taken by a simple detaining technique. Yet he did not want to expose himself so he kept his mouth shut.

"Please Titans, save me!"

"Calm down, miss, nothing's going to happen to you"

"Are you enjoying this?" Fenix telephatically asked his fake captive, taking notice of her exuberant enthusiasm in being a prisioner to which Saki replied telephatically as well "It brings back memories"

"Alright, what are your demands?"

"I ask for the safe passage of my warriors in exchange of the welfare of this young lady"

Gizmo, who was at the time the only H.I.V.E member left standing wondered if it was them who he was refering to, he had long stopped recording and was more preoccupied about high tailing it out of there rather than staying and seeing if any of his team members needed help for he was more than a little selfish, but hesitated as he heard that he and his criminal friends will be allowed to retreat safely. Robin looked around to spot the two villians that Muradin had clubbered senselessly, slowly recovering; Mammoth pulling his head out of the floor with a pop sound and Jinx unstucking herself from a Napolitanian bucket of ice cream helping herself to some as she did. Robin turned his gaze back at the Protoss and his captive with a nod.

"We will let them go, if you promise to let her go as well,"

"You have my word Terran leader"

Seeing that as their cue to run away all H.I.V.E. members ran past the Titans, Gizmo being the only that could smile for Mammoth and Jinx were more than limping away rather than running, he did obscene gestures at his enemies as he flew past.

"See you later losers! A HA HA HA HA!"

Ignoring the scowling faces of his subordinates, obviously displeased of letting their hated enemies run away in such a manner, Robin waited until they were out of sight to speak again.

"There your 'warriors' are gone, now let her go"

"But of course, here, TAKE HER!"

Fenix pushed his little prisioness Saki with such tremendous force towards the Titans that even though she was caught by both Cyborg and Robin the force was still enough to make them fall backwards and take Starfire, Raven and even Muradin with them as they fell, the Protoss warrior laughed and pressed another button in his gaunlets.

"Mission accomplished, recall me back, until we meet again, warriors!"

The group tried desperately to get up before Fenix could affect his retreat, however instead of starting running as they predicted he would, he just stood there without moving. Fenix also noticed that nothing was happening and pressed the button again, his commanding telephatical voice booming through out the mall.

"I said RECALL ME BACK!"

It was then that Muradin who was fumbuling still to get his companions off him recognized a voice that came from Fenix's transmitter

"I don't know which key to press!"

"It is the one that says 'RECALL' Virgil don't be so ignorant!"

"But it's all in protoss language everything looks like bloody gibberish"

At that moment the leader of the Titans got back up with a martial arts jump and pulling out once again his quarter staff he ran at the panicking alien, yelling all the way.

"It is the blue one, PRESS THE BLUE ONE!"

The same blue sphere of energy that had brought Fenix into that world, appeared once again and engulfed him which caused Robin to stop his charge for fear of harming himself by running into the blue energy; in the next second Fenix was gone, leaving the Titans aghast, the H.I.V.E members with valuable information about Muradin, the mall completely thrashed and many mallrats screaming for an encore.

"Oh thank you so much for the rescue!"

Saki apparently was a very talented actress for she was still playing the role of the helpless rescued hostage when she hugged Cyborg who was the only one still holding her, he rubbed the back of his head and made a embarassed smile at her. Starfire carried the very unlucky Beast Boy who looked like he had been mugged down in a dark city alley, clothes torn, his chest bleeding and his right cheek swollen and bruised; Raven showed a little compassion while she spared him some of her powers to heal him.

The people who had stayed to watch the fight from the safety of the stores, either because they did stay voluntarily or failed at leaving with the majority, now sorrounded the Titans and congratulated them and consoled them for having to let their prey get away, however Robin broke away from the celebration and walked up to Muradin who had just reverted back to his normal form and was staying outside the ring of people for none actually recognized him as a member of the Titans.

"So that little ability of yours, when where you planning to reveal it to us?"

"I just did didnt'cha lad? Quat are ye complaining about now?"

"I don't like it when members of my team hold secrets from me and that includes abilites of turning into stone, if I would have known you could do that then perhaps I could have devised something so that Beast Boy wouldn't be in this condition right know, do you got any other skills that you would like to show me?"

Robin's tone was that of a drill sarge scolding a private that had just messed up, something that Muradin was not liking one bit for he had gone through that almost thousands of years ago and was not going to let a kid make him relive it, a little voice in the back of his head added to that, especially not a human kid.

"Listen herre bairrn, I'm not gonna stand for yer--"

However his come back was interrupted when he caught a glimpse of his guardian angels' eyes, who despite being very innocent and pure glowed with a very faint light of disaproval.

"She knows what I'm thinking" thought Muradin as he turned away from Saki's gaze and looked up to his new leader "I'm... uh... sorry 'bout that lad ah... I should've told ye, and I'm sorry 'bout the grreen lad to, I guess I wanted to take all the glorry to meself it won't happen again..."

The young superhero had a hard gaze while he listened to Muradin's apologetic words, scanning for any trace of sarcasm of hypocrisy, he did found them when his new subordinate said that he was sorry about Beast Boy but he also noticed that Muradin was also swallowing all his pride as he asked forgivness and at the very least he did not shoot back as Robin was expecting him to do, showing that he could at least recognize a mistake. He chuckled at the sight of seeing the musculed short newbie looking depressed and placed a hand on his shoulder which made Muradin jump a little in surprise.

"It's allright you did managed to beat the crap out of both Mammoth and Jinx all by yourself, none of us have been able to that before, just make sure you tell me what you're gonna do before you do it, deal?"

Robin walked away to sign authographs smiling and giving a thumbs up to Muradin who truth be told was speechless and only managed to give a slight nod in reply; he had expected to be humiliated after leaving himself open for an insult but was instead repaid with understanding and forgiveness something he had never experienced before. In Azeroth for the most part, if a soldier from a race different from his superior failed to follow orders properly, no matter what their alligance to one another races they would use that as proof of their race being better than the other in very demeaning and insulting manners something that was at least considered better than an execution for even that was a privilege in an army for in a world with constant warfare every soldier was precious; there were very few individuals in Azeroth who showed true symphathy for a friendly allied race, let alone show any mercy to a hostile one aside from holy Paladins, whose sole purpose was to serve anyone that championed the causes of good and even then there were some who deep within themselves harbored resentment of working with someone who did not follow their exact same religion, eventually that sort turned into Deathknights. It was in that environment filled with segregation and religious turmoil that Muradin had lived until the end of his days and now he had laid his pride and honour in front of a human boy which he was expecting him to step on as any Azerothenian human would have done and instead the boy picked it up and gave it back to him with a friendly path in the shoulder. Perhaps the after life was better after all.

"See that wasn't so bad,"

The bewildred Mountain King saw Saki approaching him while the Titans were being distracted by a crowd of screaming fans and in later moments, police, who started asking Robin to give his report.

"Ye know what? Yer right I should be pious morre often"

"There you go, now you are understanding what tolerance means and you even got a nice level out of that"

"I did?"

"Check your medallion"

The dwarven young looked into the medallion that was in his pocket and noticed that in now said "12" instead of "10"

"We shwacks! I got two levels outta' that"

"One for the battle and the other one was on me" Saki rubbed her hand on Muradin's head messing up his hair.

"Now remember that I gave you another quest to help you out"

"Aggg, ye had to remind me didnt'cha? I'll starrt worrking on it as soon as I get back to the tower"

"Good boy! I knew you would start to appreciate all my efforts to help you, now hurry up and go to your friends. I am sure they are as anxious to leave as you are and don't worry I know you will be allright in this one, for I will be watching you"

Muradin's guardian angel placed her hand on the dwarf's back and gave him a forceful push toward the crowd, a very well thought out movement because after being called "Good boy" the Mountain King could have lost his new modest behaivor in a burst of anger. When he turned around Saki was nowhere to be seen an event which made him shudder somewhat for she had assured him that she would be watching him, he wondered what the extent of that would be for a while but decided to stop thinking about it lest he would grow paranoid; he lifted his axe and rested it on his shoulder as he walked toward the group requesting their immidiate departure of the "Keep" as he called it, something that Raven was very happy to comply with as she was getting very worked up by all the drooling fans over her and already random objects have started to explode.

The ride back was pretty much silent, except for the few groans of pain here and there and everyone had the same spots as the last time save for Muradin and Beast Boy who switched positions, because the changeling had been badly wounded in battle it was better for him to be spread out in the trunk rather than sitting, sufice to say that Muradin was glad he could help by trading his place.

Back in the tower, Muradin stood in the living room and observed his new found allies spread out and go about their buisness, except for Beast Boy who instead of jumping around like an idiot as usual was lying in the sofa with Raven kneeling beside him properly treating his wounds while at the same time taking the opportunity to constantly taunt him and remind him of how much he sucked for getting so badly thrashed by a little alien.

"Who was two meters tall, had magnetic barriers and laser claw thingies, and could teleport! Not to mention that he was a total pyscho!" Beast Boy said in his defense.

Muradin paid them no mind however, for they were not his intended targets, he looked out the window to watch how the sun was slowly sinking into the horizon and the sky no longer being blue but because of the last lingering sun rays it was now orange and red, the sun set always reminded him of a funny joke; he thought that it looked like the sun had been struck down by an arrow or a bullet (more than likely a bullet because an arrow represented elves to him) and it was going down slowly with a dramatic pose leaving the sky to be covered with the sun's blood... well it was funny for him anyway and because most of his life was spent underground whenever he looked outside to the sky he got rather poetic.

"God I hate poetrry" B/N #8

Quickly shaking his head out of such thoughts that were almost alien to him he strapped his new gotten axe to his back using the leather seath that came included with the purchase of the weapon/tool, for an additional charge of course and started walking aimlessly through the tower pondering in his next step, or rather his first step on his obnoxious quest. Selecting the less trodded area of the tower he placed his hand under his chin and started walking on circles as he spoke out loud,

"Allrright, lemme talk to meself herre for a minute or two, quat do I know 'bout match making. Well I know that I'm no good at it that's for surre, I've never had any luck with women mainly 'cuz I actually didn't have any time for anything other than going into battle; but I surre would have enjoyed that rather than fighting all the time especially in Norrthrrend that frrozen hell sh-- ARRR! I'm trrailing off over 'erre, I gotta focus! Think think think! All my years of warrfarre, of bashing both the unsuspecting and the deserrving had gotta yield me with some sorrt of unique insight"

Muradin stopped for a moment and started slowly banging his head in one of the walls, careful enough not to smash through it for he did not want to make Cyborg fix it, he was toiling ceaslessly as it was.

"Bloody bother, firrst let's look at this on ma' current perrpesctive quat do I know 'bout Rrobin and that other trroll girl Starrfire? Huh, well that orrange lass seems to be a bit of an air head but the fact is that I seem to scarre her somewhat, so it might leave me at a disadvantage while talking to her, that leaves me with talking to the lad firrst. Therre ya go now I have some sorrt of strrategy, gotta go talk to the boy firrst but quat will I say to him when I see him?"

While Muradin was submerged on his little monologue he had unconsiously started to scratch on the wall surface and all too late had he realized that he was tearing through the wall like if it was an eraser.

"Blast it all! I'm too restless and that pathetic skirrmish I had earrlier has only left me with morre yerrn for battle, I gotta go burrn some enerrgy... werre did Rrobin say the trraining room was anyway?"

The Titan Mountain King searched through his memory and drew an imaginary line in the direction of the gym where his new leader said it was located, as he transversed the lonely and vast corridors of the tower devoid of any super heroes trodding about he pondered the next step of his plan and suddenly wondered where everyone was, it was surprisingly silent and damp like the corridors of an underground cave, actually, if he did not know better he could swear he was below earth but the more he thought about it the more it made sense that there was no one in sight.

"The lads most be all tirred and off to their rooms to sleep, that was quite a nasty battle even if the combatants werre just a bunch of kiddos"

He neared a big corridor which had a sign in red bright letters labled "DANGER ROOM"

"This must be it" said the dwarven warrior as he approached the entrance of the room, he was expecting to have all the training area to himself as he was absolutely sure there was not a soul awake in the tower, confident that only heroes of his caliber could withstand consecutive fights like that without dropping; it was because of that thought that he halted his steps when he heard faint murmuring coming from the inside of the room, he considered that to be very odd indeed and instead of barging inside he prowled to hide himself near the corner of the entrance and slowly popped his head to look inside, usually the clithering of the axe would have gave anyone away but because now he was such a petite fellow his footsepts were almost noiseless; what he found was Robin and Cyborg talking to each other in normal voice and he waited there listening to their conversation like a rouge.

"O.K. Cyborg tell me what you and Beast Boy really found out about Muradin this time"

"Look man I told you already like a hundred times! He went straight for the store, caught us spying on him and we had to buy him his danged axe so he wouldn't suspect nothing, oh by they way you owe like a hundred bucks for that."

"But, are you sure nothing happened in between?"

"Well he was talking for a while to some lady giving out cheese samples"

"AHA! That's it! She must have been his contact, he was giving her information so she could turn it into Slade, I know it! I just know it!"

"Hey man, that lady, she was the lady that got caught by that alien dude, and you also said that he was one of Slade's minions and besides there are people almost everywhere giving out samples for stuff in the mall, don't you think Slade could have hired someone like a ninja or someone that was a little bit more expensive than a random fast food restaurant employee?"

"Perhaps, but it could also be because he's running out short on budget and he is now being forced to hire second rate killers!"

"Robin, do you really think that Muradin, the guy that just smacked the crap out of you like yo' mama used to do earlier in the morning, is a second rate killer?"

"O.K. Fine! It doesn't make any sense! But think about it, these couple of days we've been waylaid by knights and barbarians attacking the bank, Raven fainting because she felt magick and then some kid wielding a hammer comes to our rescue almost begging us to let him be a Titan and then the next day the H.I.V.E gets some teleporting alien to help them out; look at all this evidence and tell me nothing's going on!"

"Yo man take a chill pill, you don't need to scream at me and why are you telling me all this at the gym anyway wouldn't have your room been better?"

"I figured that no one is going to come here seeing that we just had a huge battle and anyway with Beast Boy being all tored up and Raven healing him and Starfire gone to rest is better we don't have an official meeting, I don't want any one to feel left out"

"Well, what about Muradin?"

"Cyborg, we are basically talking about him behind his back, do you really think I'm going to invite him over here so I can say to his face how much I mistrust him?"

"No, I suppose not"

All this time that the Mountain King was listening to their conversation it was slowly working him into a blood thirsty frenzy, how dare they not trust him after all he has done for them? True, he was practically only using them as a way to get into heaven but by no means did he intend to betray them; however he calmed himself thinking of how impressive it was for the young leader to spot such things in that matter, he had even suspected about Saki giving out information to him where his peers had not, someday he thought he would grow up to make a legendary champion of the good, if Muradin did not kill him right there and then; the dwarf heroe toyed momentarily with the idea of going inside there, pushing Cyborg aside and snapping Robin's neck but soon relaxed with a crack of his knuckles and a little twist of his neck and walked inside the room pretending he was just arriving, taking of his axe seath and placing in a hanger as he did.

"Evening therre lads! I see that even now yer sharrpeinig yer skills for battle, ye trruly live out to yer reputation dont'cha?"

"Muradin! Uh... hi there! What are you doing here so late?"

"Quat? Canna I come to lift some irron after a good day's thrrashing? In the remainder of our time togheterr ye should knaw I donna get tirred very easily"

"Yeah I can see that, did you just get here?"

"Yeh I did, why ye asking?"

"No reason, no reason"

"Oh look is that the time? I gotta get back to work on my baby"

The android quickly ran out of there to once again enhance his precious car, anxious of getting away from that very uncomfortable situation for he was not certain that Muradin had just indeed only arrived in their middle of their conversation and in truth intended to confront Robin about his mistrust. Robin however decided it was best to stay there because if he followed Cyborg in his retreating act Muradin was certain to think that they were trying to avoid him.

"Allright, so what do you want to do Muradin"

The Titan leader smacked his hands together and forced a smile because he was in fact very tired and the least thing he wanted to do now was training, so he shrank at the idea of doing his martial arts katas exhausted.

"Donna worry 'bout me If ye'll show me werre yer weights arre kept I'll just handle it after that"

"About that, the weights may be a little different from what your accustomed to"

"Quat ye meaning by that?"

"Here, let me show you,"

Robin opened an automatic door, it seemed that everything in the Tower was electronic, and from it came an odd assortment of instruments from which he picked a metal bar with medium-sized weights adhered to it.

"Ack! Come on boy I can lift heavier stuff than that puny little twig,"

"That's the thing, they may look like small weights but Cyborg added in a gravitational generator"

"Grravitational generrator?"

"Yes it makes it so that you can choose with how much force are the weights going to be pulled toward the floor, see let me show you, right now is at 5 pounds"

Robin pressed a little arrow going forward on the bar and the number increased to 10.

"See? They now weigh 10 pounds and if you continue pressing the arrow it will keep adding, Cyborg made that so that we wouldn't have to haul tons and tons of weights just so he could rep stuff it was getting expensive, either way he and Starfire were pretty much the only ones that had superhuman strength so it was pointless to have all those piles of metal so that they were used only once in a while."

"Verry ingenious, let me trry them out for a bit"

Muradin took the weights from his coach and started rapidly pressing the arrows forward so that the weight started to increase considerably.

"Hey don't over do it there"

"Donna worry, I won't hurrt meself I know werre to stop"

Muradin continued pressing the keys in the middle of the bar until he reached about ten thousand tons and then rubbed his hands before he grabbed it again, however when Robin saw the number that the dwarf titan had picked he protested,

"What did I just tell you?"

Before he could continue with his scolding, Muradin quickly reached for the bar and in one movement cleaned the bar (A/N #2) without not so much of a grunt and then proceeded to do a complete olympic press by lifting it over his head with a little jingle of the weights; Robin stood motionless and open mouthed as how easily Muradin had lifted that, for even though he had seen Cyborg lift such a enormus weight he had done so with difficulty and either way his fellow android Titan was a massive metallic almost 2 meters giant while Muradin was shorter than even himself, and that means being really short.

"Quat do ye think? Imprresive? I know some blokes that can do double this frram wherre I'm frrom"

The smug smiling heroe quickly pulled down the bar to his chest when he noticed the shocked expression of his leader, he did not want to bring too much attention to himself so he decided to act modestly.

"But I canna do that too many times, so arre ye going to just stand therre admirring me or arre ye gonna go do some weights yerrself?"

"What? Oh yeah"

Some time after Robin had started practicing his moves against a punching bag and Muradin had decided to do simple 5 thousands tons bench presses he decided that it was the perfect opportunity to strike not only had the room being filled with total silence except for the jingle of weighs and thuds of punches so anything that Muradin said could be misinterpreted as casual conversation but the Khaz Modanian knew by the breathing of Robin that he was tired, sleepy and probably hungry, the perfect time for the dwarf cupid to make his move; too bad he had no idea of how to start.

"So, Rrobin!"

"Yes Muradin what is it?"

"That... ummm... (quat's her name?) Oh yeh... Starrfire!"

The Titan martial artist slowed down his punching when he heard his new friend speak that name.

"What about her?"

"Well... uh... she's... prrety darn cute dont'cha think?"

Muradin was using that age old strategy of the louder you talk the smarter you sound, he knew that such strategy was complete and utter garbage but he could not think of anything else at the moment; and besides it was hidden by the fact that he was still bench pressing so it sounded as if he was straining to casually talk to break the silence of the room.

"Yeah, she is sort of..."

"Ye know if she's dating anyone?"

"No, not that I know of" Robin had now completely ceased to strike the punching bag and held it to stop its swinging "And why may I ask are you asking this to me?"

"Well!" Muradin placed the bar back on the holders and layed in the plastic bench for a moment breathing rapidly, the embarassment of speaking such things had made him to start bench pressing faster and faster so after a couple of breaths he swallowed some saliva and spoke again.

"I wez just wonderring 'cuz I saw how she was looking at me in the morning so I might go over therre later and ask her on a date or sumething"

The Titan leader felt a tingiling in his spine, Muradin had played his cards right he had struck the jealousy cord that he had seen earlier in the testing training; he heard little gasps and uncomprehensilbe words coming out of Robin and then very calmly took the bar again and started bench pressing, he did so for three or four more times and after having his fill of hearing his new superior squirm at his powerlessnes he said,

"Go get her some flowerrs lad"

Robin was violently snapped out of his shock and reorganized his thoughts, Muradin had just openly challenged him for Starfire's heart and had then pushed him toward her, Wonder Boy may not want to admit it but he did not want a rival of the likes of Muradin for he would prove to be a great challenge to beat, now knowing that the short hero not only possed immense strength but was also skilled in hand to hand fighting techniques; something that Robin had always had an advantage over his teammates for none of them knew actually how to go melee and in a "mano a mano" battle Muradin was sure to emerge victorious no matter how hard Robin tried. Meanwhile, the dwarven kid was still calmly bench pressing and seeing that his oh so glorious leader was doubting he decided to taunt him again.

"'Cuz if ye don't, sure as 'ell that I will"

That was the last straw, Robin did not wait a moment longer and rushed out of the room with all his remaning energy, heavy drops of sweat falling from his spiky hair; as his steps faded from the room Muradin stood back up and wiped his forehead clean of moisture that had built up.

"Quat a sucker, I had forrgotten how teenagerrs are so easily arroused. Well, now that's all done I gotta go check on that Starrfire girrl... aggg this is not gonna be easy"

With an uneasy pace Muradin tied his axe seath on his chest and left the training area going straight for the living room, his arms were throbbing for all the lifting he had done, he was light headed after not having eating anything and was still, even though it was a complete sucess, ashamed of playing matchmaker for a couple of younglings. He came upon the big living room to watch Beast Boy watching the T.V. which was of, well, Titanic proportions B/N #9; Raven, the dark member of the team, was sitting by the table with her nose buried in a book of necromantic origins, Muradin's eyebrows furrowed at such pathetic spectacle, he still did not enjoy that he had to live with these people what fate could be worse than to spend time in company of an orchish elf and an undead warlock? Then Muradin remembered Tyreal's example and concluded that hell was much worse, so he gathered what little sanity he had left and went to the dinner table where Raven was seated, he did not even need to crouch to reach for the lower cabinets were the drinks were kept and after taking a carton of apple juice he jumped and struggled to seat himself in the stool next to the mysterious girl.

"Evening therre las--"

"Don't talk to me, shrimp"

"Surre thing"

It was for the best anyway, if by some miracle Raven decided to spare some of her time to the new titan it was sure to consume precious time away from Muradin's mission; it would have only hindered his efforts to complete this problematic quest that had been cast upon him and therefore decided that it was best just to ignore the outcast of the sorceress. The troubled hero now started gulping down the apple juice from the very cardboard and then rested his chin on his fist while he once again went through his numerous files of gruesome battle to find some strategy that worked for him in the past and now could be applied to this situation. While he did so, Raven who was on a trance like position consuming the knowledge of one of her dark books suddenly felt very uneasy, she could not concentrate at all since the kid took a seat next to her, it was as if some foreign thoughts were entering her own mind; the witch pulled away from her book and very carefully looked over to her side to watch Muradin, he was looking very pensive and no longer was taking healthy drinks of his refreshment but was only staring at the abyss deep within his own thoughts.

It was then that Raven suddenly felt that she was no longer inside the cozy tower but in the middle of a frozen tundra during a snowstorm that allowed very little visibility, it could have been plain day but it was as dark as the middle of the night she was also being escorted by a numerous group of short cloaked men carrying rifles and other firearms, her body was not her own and was seeing everything from what it seemed another person's eyes, she spotted that the hands of her host were covered with leather gaunlets and were clutching a hammer and an axe while trodding through the snow, in that moment a terrifying shriek was heard somewhere in the dark and behind the snowy dunes, there was sudden confusion among the group and Raven felt the raspy voice of her host bark orders at the men in some strange language; soon monstrous figures started appearing in the dark and with demonic speed pounced some folk that had wandered too far from the group, if Raven could, she would have gasped at the sight of the poor men whose bodies were torn to pieces by the infernal shadows in front of her very eyes, torn body parts and gushing blood coloring red the once pure white snow, she heard blasting gun shots and more screams from both the cloaked group and the unnatural howling of the attacking creatures; some more words were spoken by her host and the soldiers formed a circle with two men in the middle loading what looked like a mortar and then shooting a flare up to the sky, the darkness gave way and now she could see clearly the things that were hidden under the shadows. Raven's heart skipped a beat when her eyes fell on the grim sight that was unfolding in the snow, about three ghoulish horrors from beyond the grave were feasting on the corpse of a fallen rifleman tearing through his flesh with their claws and jaws, the group stood shaken for a moment but soon aimed their weapons at them and blasted all three of the creatures to bloody gobbets it had not ended however, for more came, this time swarming against the huddled group of soldiers in a frenzy, more shots were fired and the deadly mortar was brought into play this time blowing apart a great number of the creatures before they could ever reach their destination, yet there were simply too many of them and the first line of defense soon had to resort to their bayonets to fend of the hellish aberrations, one of them leapt all the way across the ranks and went straight for Raven, the jagged mouth of the monster about to snap its jaws on her head and it was at that point when the sorceress let out an ear piercing scream of horror.

"What's yer bloody prroblem?"

Raven was once again in the tower, she had fallen from the stool and was sitting in the floor with her legs sprawled open her book had landed a few yards away from her; both Muradin and Beast Boy were looking at her direction with concerned but slightly amused expressions on their faces enjoying the fact that the no nonsense Raven had fallen from a chair. She however was breathing fast and her heart was racing; what had happened to her? Was the first thing that popped on her head, one moment she was looking at Muradin and the next she was being attacked from all sides by zombies, could it been possible that somehow she had entered the kid's mind and this was a memory he had or perhaps a nightmare?

"Herre let me help ye out lassie"

"Don't touch me! Get the hell away from me!"

Muradin had gotten down from his stool with a little jump and had extended his hand to help Raven get up, but was paid with her slapping his hand away and then trodding of out of the room,

"I need to be alone" was the only thing she could say in explanation for what she had done. Beta's Note #10

Raven soon left the room and the Mountain King instead of shouting curses at her got an idea, was it not Cyborg who mentioned that it was this strange demoness who was the one that spent more time with Starfire? If it was so then she was the perfect canditate for seeking help in his quest, as strange as it sounded Muradin needed to talk to her and began to walk after her.

"Dude! Were do you think you're going?"

"I'm gonna go ask the lass a question"

"You don't want to do that dude, trust me when Rae gets all emo like that it is just best to leave her alone. Belive me I have tried to cheer her up but it only makes it worse"

"But it's imperrative I arsked her sumething, it's verry imporrtant and I'm not gonna desist just 'cuz she starrted having a fit"

"Listen, listen" Beast Boy turned off the T.V., a strange occasion indeed, and limped slightly towards Muradin, Beast Boy was looking much better than earlier, he no longer had any bruises on his face and the only remainder of the past fight was a white bandage strapped on his forehead but the fact remained still that he had been brutally battered and as such he was still tired, so he walked slower than usual.

"What do you want to ask her?"

"I juss' wanted to knaw some facts 'bout Starrfirre"

"Poor guy, and you think she's going to tell you"

The strange green boy started laughing and pointing at Muradin's face, something which the warrior did not really know how to react to and only narrowed his eyes at the changeling, who suddenly stopped laughing when pain struck his injured face.

"Look, you have to understand that you don't mess around with Rae, she's not the type of person who's going to be very open with you and gossip about, whatever"

"So? I'm juss' gonna ask her a thing or twa"

"You're not getting are you? She's not gonna talk to you! Period"

"I can still trry"

"Here, is no use trying to do the impossible if you really wanna learn some info that only Rae knows there's only one thing you can do"

"Which is?"

"Well, the thing about people that don't talk a lot, like Rae, is that they tend to write everything they would normaly talk about in a diary and record everything they feel about anything over there. Rae has one of those and I'll bet that the information you're looking for is written in there"

Beast Boy was sounding very convincing to Muradin's ears as he continued talking he placed an arm around his bronzebearded companion, careful of not cutting himself with the axe blade, and led him in the direction of Raven's room.

"Arre... arre ye cerrtain this is safe?"

"Of course! Hey don't tell this to anyone but I do it all the time"

"Searriously?"

"Sure, how do think I'm able to get all that dirt out of her? If it wasn't for that, I'd never know were to hit her were it hurts the most"

The relatively new Titan rubbed his chin as he let himself be dragged by the changeling in the direction of Raven's room, thinking that it was perhaps best to follow this particular individual in order to accomplish his quest; he appeared to be the trickster of the group, Muradin knew that mischievous face quite well, so therefore Beast Boy could be at least be trusted in that matter.

As they approached the intersection where they would have to turn left in order to get to the empath's room, Beast Boy made a fast maneuver and pushed himself and his companion forcefully toward the wall. Before Muradin could make a gesture of protest by the push, the green rouge quickly placed a hand on his mouth and made a hushing sound signaling for silence. At that point they heard a door open from the other corridor and light steps going on the opposite direction that they were in.

"That's Rae going to her daily meditations on the Tower's roof; she does this for some hours after a battle so now it's the time to make our move"

"Ah I see, ye certainly seem to knaw quat yer doin'"

"Of course man, you'll see while you're here that I'm the best at what I do"

They quickly moved toward the door and like if they were in some sort of spy movie they placed their backs to the wall and positioned themselves in either side of the door

"OK, now open the door"

"Quat? Why me? Ye open it"

"No man listen Rae's door has some sort of lock on, the only way to open it is if you give a really hard knock on it"

"And how exactly do ye knaw that?'

"That's how Cyborg and me opened it that other time"

With a suspcious eyebrow toward the silly grinning Beast Boy, Muradin left his hiding position, which really was not that great of a hiding spot but he is short so it was not so bad, and placed himself infront of the empath's door. He cracked his shoulders and gently lifted his musculed but still very child like fist and quickly tapped the door causing a loud bang which made the electronic sensors of the entrance to topple and fall.

"Agh! Was that suppose to happ—yyyyYYYAARRGG!"

Suddenly as the door reached the floor, the would be dwarf cupid felt a surge of electricity enevelop his body with excruciating pain waves, he yelled and quacked in agony until finnally the pain stopped, leaving him paralyzed with his hair and goatie spiked and with a small trail of smoke coming out of his head.

"Huh.. That most be a new trap Rae setted for Cy and me if we tried to get on her crib again, probably that was suppose to de-active him or something" added in a rather a casual way Beast Boy as he scratched the back of his head and waltzed inside Raven's room, not noticing the inmense rage Muradin's eyes were holding as he walked behind him with the clear intentions of strangling him. He was stopped, however, when the green titan placed a stopping hand in front of him.

"Dude check it out, I found it!"

"Ye found quat?"

"Rae's diary"

"Rreally? So quickly"

Forgetting completely about his premature encounter with Raven's ill placed trap, he quickly placed himself beside Beast Boy and looked at what appeared to be a great black book with a skull shaped key hole, which was levitating in a grimly decorated stand. Beast Boy's mouth slacked as he lifted his arms to reach it

"Behold Raven's diary, keeper of her inermost secrets, whoever would posses it will always have the upper hand against her for within their hands will be the dark girl revealed"

Beast Boy stood there motionless just staring at it, in the middle of the reaching for it process. Muradin was acting patiently still a little roughed up by the electric trap he had just triggered, his partner in the infiltration mission was even so not moving an inch and after a whole minute of not moving and also getting impatient by the fact that the warlock could return any minute; Muradin finnally shoved Beast Boy.

"Allrright grrab it alrready"

"No way dude, the last time I grabbed something from Rae's room I got sucked into another dimension"

"Well I'm not gonna touch it, it will just have another bloody trrap"

As they were discussing among themselves who would gamble their safety for the sake of forbidden knowledge, they were interrupted by the echoing noise of approaching steps. Panicking beyond comprehension, they scrambled around the room running in circles and more than a couple of times running violently into each other, until they finally both decided simultanously to hide under her bed.

Unfortunatly for them, it was not until they made for their hiding spot that they noticed that one of them had managed to topple over the stand and had made the book promptly fall on the floor; neither of them had the courage in that instant to repair their mistake for the steps were getting closer and had soon arrived to the place, both of them cringed back in terror realizing that if Raven noticed her fallen diary she would find them cowering under her bed and would soon after utterly and completely annahilate them with her enraged power.

Something odd was happening though, the pair of feet that had entered the room were not the dark blue clad mocassin shoes Raven always wore but were in fact purple boots. Both Beast Boy and Muradin looked astonishedly at one another as they looked as how an orange skinned arm reached down to pick up the book, much to their relief it was not the powerful dark sorceress who had returned from her meditation, but sweet caring Starfire who apparently had wandered inside as she noticed the fallen door and was taking a look around, they still not dared to venture outside the relative safety of under Raven´s bed, but at least now the only thing they had to do was to wait for Starfire to leave to continue on their mission or more likely leave the room inmidiately. All their well thought out plans came crashing down upon them as they divised a second pair of feet entering the room.

"Starfire?"

"Oh hello friend Raven"

"What did you do to my door?"

"It was down when I—"

"Is that MY DIARY!"

The only thing that the shape shifter and the Mountain King could see were only the two girls' feet moving about, but suffice to say that it was the only thing they wanted to see for they were afraid of their own safety if they tried to see anything else.

"You think that because I let you inside a couple of times you can barge in my room and take a look at my shit?"

"But friend Raven I did not-"

A loud painful sounding SMACK was heard by the intruders, interrupting Starfire's defense dialouge by the gasp of the Tamaranian girl they deduced that she had just been slapped.

"Now get out!"

Muradin and Beast Boy then witnessed how Starfire's pair feet made a backward movement and then ran outside, sobbing all the way. Then they saw how Raven placed the door back on it's proper place with her power, inmense terror took hold of them when the sorceress' feet turned back and started walking towards them, they dissapeared out of sight but by the sudden pressure they felt on their backs they realized Raven had jumped on her bed and there apparently she stood without making a sound. It took some time until Muradin had the confidence to once again talk in hushed tones to his green companion.

"Allrright… now quat?"

"What? Don't look at me, I only agreed to help you because I wanted to get some dirt on Rae myself after she made fun of me about that confrontation with the alien dude. But now I'm getting out of here, you're on your own dude"

Before the young shifter could turn into anything that would allow him to escape without being noticed, he was grabbed by shoulder and then turned fiercly towards Muradin, who then spoke still on hushed tones but with a very searious angry tone

"If ye abandon me 'erre, I'm gonna hunt ye down and kill ye"

Beast Boy looked into the dwarven titan's eyes for a second or two but after a moment of thought he made a silly grin and said "Sure whatever dude" right before turning into a fly and quickly escpaing the room without being noticed

"That bastarrd could have at least told me is she wez sleeping" said the very angry Khaz Modainan before he placed his hand on his own mouth as he felt a faint movement from the upper part of the bed no doubt Raven moving by the little whispers she was hearing "Apparently not" thought Muradin as he uttered a silent thank you by the fact that the sorceress did not bothered to inspect under her bed.

Muradin had decided in the long wait under the bed to simply abort that particular mission, if he could get out without being noticed. He was not one to give up easily but the fact that if he was discovered he would have to face an enraged Raven made him wish that he had not thought of the idea of looking through the empath's diary for information, he knew that he could take Raven on a fair fight but he dared not challenge her when she was angry he very well knew the power of warlocks and besides it was not a very good idea to give the reputation of himself being some sort of sicko hiding on girl's dorms. In a way he could almost forgive Beast Boy for running away as he did, the silly little shape shifter would not be able to beat his necromantic teammate even if his life depended on it, which was going to be the case if he was discovered. So far the only problem that the trapped warrior could see besides that he was in fact trapped was the bad blood that his actions had caused between Starfire and Raven, but as far as he could see it would not hinder his mission in any way perhaps making it even easier, for Robin was sure to come to her sooner or later to cheer her up.

"Now I juss' gotta get outta 'erre" Were the words of a nervous Muradin as he decided to make a desesperate escape by going to the door with the most silent commando prowl he could muster. His biggest worry was that Raven sitting or lying or whatever she was doing on her bed would be looking in the direction of her door and would notice the faint glitter of the dwarf thane's axe blade still strapped to his back, but he had to take his chances. Very slowly he began to move out from under the bed, he had waited long enough he thought and such silence could only mean that the sorceress was sleeping or so he hoped for he was not even sure if said creatures even needed to sleep. So great was his fear that he did not even dare look back to make sure that she was in fact dormant, but it was to late anyway he was out in the middle of the room lying down and slowly moving; if she was awake and looking at him she would have already made some sort of noise. "Unless" Thought Muradin "She has some sorrt o' sadistic tendency and wants to feed on my fear, that would be juss' like thos blasted magicians to do" Those hate indusing thoughts were for the most part what made him keep going and not buckle up under the pressure, still for being such a small room the small fighter felt as if he had travel 30 miles of distance, he could very well compare the feeling to those days were he had to cross in the same way through mine fields; however every spawn of time at some time is reached and Muradin had finally reached the empath's door.

"Crrap, I donna know how to open it" Cursed Muradin on his thoughts and slightly poked the door in the hopes that it would open by itself as he had seen other doors in the tower do. Feeling that the dark heroine would sooner or later turn to see him, the Bronzebeard silently stood up and felt the walls for a switch, the room was extremely dark fortunately for him and was sure that, it was because of it that the sorceress had not spotted him yet, however it also made things difficult for him because he could also not see exactly what he was touching. Very throughly and as fast as he dared, he examined the walls for anything that resembeld a handle or a button or anything, he found at last two switches and in one movement decided not leave anything for lady luck to decide, he was sure that she was not smiling to him at that moment, and pressed both of them; one of them as he expected was the door and it quickly slid open, but to his horror the other one triggered the lights which quickly flickered on.

"Who's there?"

Bronzebeard heard the chilling voice of the witch as she was stirred awake by the lights, in one swift movement Muradin changed strategy by turning around and said

"Wazzapening lassie? I hearrd some conmossion coming frram 'erre and I came to check it out"

The thane put up a fake grin and very childlike trodded into the room once again pretending that he just entered, the dark girl sat up straight, she was no longer wearing her cloak and was using only her skin tight leotard but she was also holding the bed sheets up as if to cover herself; Muradin struggled not to lose composture for it was the first time he had seen her without her cape garmet covering her and knew that seeing her slightly exposed like that was sure to bring him even more pain, he was proved right when the girl suddenly grew red eyed and said in an almost mounstrous voice

"YOU CAN'T COME IN!"

"Why nocht?" said Muradin still holding a fake childish smile

"BECAUSE IT'S MY ROOM!"

"So? I juss' came cuz I hearrd sumething strrange dass all'

A glass jar was quickly sorrounded by dark energy levitated from another stand and threw itself to the long haired kid, Muradin raised an arm to block and it shattered on his arm causing little discomfort

"OUT! OUT! OUT!"

"OI'!"

At that moment the goulish face that had attacked Raven earlier in the kitchen appeared once again on her mind and yelled in front of her making the young wizardress lose all her anger and be replaced by fear. Muradin only saw how the girl's expression changed from one of putrid rage to one of almost innocent fright, thinking he was getting to her he walked towards the slightly panicked girl.

"Ye canna be thrrowing stuff at people lassie, not when the only thing they came fer is to help ye"

Normally, when someone would try to console Raven in such a manner and they started with their regular scolding of her antisocial behaivor dialouge, she would ignore them and leave or make them leave be it the case they were in her room, however for some reason she could not do so with the new hammer wielding kid, her excuse was that no one had the right to tell her what to do if themselves did not understand what she had gone through; but all this horrible images that were coming to her mind only happened when she looked at Muradin square in the eye, which was sufficient for the dark titan to catch little glimpses of the subjects thoughts if they were strong enough such as very strong desires, or long past hardships; either he had very disturbing nightmares or he had truly gone through hell.

"Do ye underrstand ma' meaning?"

Raven let out a slight gasp, for when she was debating the source of those images Muradin was already in front of her, due to the fact that she was sitting on her bed that meant that she was at eye level with the smaller titan.

"Ye canna be like this all the bloody time girl! I'm still surrprrised that ye still remain in this group, volatile as ye arre. I've hearrd of berrserrkerrs who let their anger get the best of them and thus slaughter any one that get near 'em. But even they would accept in a heartbeat being in a team like this were ye would not be judge by quat ye arre or quat ye look like but quat ye believe in, and they would cheerrish it and 'erre, ye, a so called wise wizardess mocks and shuns yer teammates at everry slight annoyance. I canna believe they even let ye still be 'erre"

"But it was not always like this! It was not 'till I came here that I had….. "friends". Do you understand really? What is to be lonely to never have warmth?"

"Look I'm not gonna prretend that I know yer past or anything of the sorrt, but I do know however that everryone has had their fair share of trroubles in life"

A quick vision came to Raven's mind, she was once again in the frozen wasteland and the snow storm still raged on. She saw herself kneeling down to a badly injured man clutching a rifle, grasping his hand on hers the man made a struggled final gasp and closed his eyes.

"I'm also not sayin' that ye should stop how ye arre, if that's yer way of dealing with things then grreat I canna stop ye. But if ye rreally donna carre 'bout otherrs then all that superrherroe thing yer doing is just complete bullshait"

"But I do care I just.."

"You just do it for the sake of doing it, not because ye feel it. Believe it or not I used to be juss' like ye, ya know? I defended my homeland for the simple sake of survival, but I never not once botherred to move frram ma' capital city to defend other neighboring villages, 'cuz it wasn't ma' prroblem. Until a good frriend of mine, a bloke called Uther, told me that if I wez gonna do sumething to help then I had to feel it coming frram inside of me, I had to want to do it, otherrwise I was juss' an automatum a souless thing worrse than a demon"

"I- I am not a complete demon I.."

"If yer not then show it, donna be scarred o' using yer feelings again. Be confident that yer gonna contrral them and not them contrral ye. Feel it Crrow! Ye gotta feel it!"

"Raven"

"Quat?"

"The name's Raven"

"(Bloody 'ell) Look see, now yer angrry 'cause I forrgot yer name. But nothing's exploding, ye canna be afrraid of showing some emotion, cuz I can see that therre's morre to ye than juss' a quiet lass that scorrns everrything that is not herrself, if nothing I have learrned that much in my brief stay 'erre"

The Mountain King reached an arm towards the depressed looking girl and patted her shoulder with a smile and said "And I hope to learrn much 'orre" then he turned and left, leaving Raven sitting on the edge of her bed looking down at the floor sullenly.

"Blood and ashes! That was frreaking close!" Muradin had walked a couple of steps away from Raven's room before clutching his chest and leaning on the wall for support "For a moment 'erre I thought I was gonna have a bleeding hearrt attack. Good thing that I kept ma' cool otherrwise she would have known we were hiding under her bed all along" Once again Muradin, and he hoped for the last blasted time in this day, allowed a relieving sigh to escape his mouth as he adjusted his belt and axe seath "Now I juss' have to go kill that grreen mofo"

At that very moment in a place which was billion years away from the place where our heroes dwelled, a place which almost no mortal creature knew of its existance or had only heard of on ancient cryptic scriptures a pair of eyes were watching. A pair of eyes who could only belong to a being of inimagible wisdom for only those that had such tremendous power could muster the godlike energy that was required for such type of scrying devices to be used, power that we as mortals could not even begin to comprehend and---

"Yo! Tyreal! Check it out man, Muradin is gonna give a thrashing to that Beast Boy bugger!"

Well, alright, it was just Virgil, who was spying on Muradin through a pool which some ancient gods once used to watch over their chosen ones.

"What is this nonsense that you say now Virgil?"

Approaching in all his glory was the archangel Tyreal, his tentacle wings swaying as he walked towards the lesser angel.

"Tyreal you missed everything, I was checking on Muradin and something incredible happened"

"Yes yes, I know all about it. He was fighting Fenix the protoss wasn't he? I know because it was I that sent him there"

"No that's not it, well to make a long story short. One of the Teen Titans and him were doing something and then Muradin said he was gonna kill him if he left and guess what? He left just like that!"

"What?" said Tyreal as he rushed toward the pool to inspect it's content, in it he could see from an upper view shot how Muradin walked outside the titan tower and spotted Beast Boy sitting near the beach throwing stones at the ocean "Doesn't he know that when dwarves say they are going to kill you they mean it?"

"Apparently not, and now he is one dead green beastie"

"If Muradin slays him then all my hard work of getting the quest for him will go to waste! I cannot let all that trouble be for nothing just for a little cultural misunderstanding!"

"Should I call Saki?"

"No no no, that would be too risky" said Tyreal in a worried tone while he watched in despair the Mountain King exchanging a couple of harsh non audiable words with Beast Boy and then the dwarf slugging him in the chest. Virgil made some excited crowd noises such as "OW! Look at that! Oh, I bet he felt that one" as he saw Beast Boy turning into an elephant and trying to toss Muradin aside, but the Khaz Modanian pulled him by his long nose and head butted him, Muradin had a surprisingly strong head as the impact was enough to daze the elephant Beast Boy, then still grabbing hold of his nose spinned around a couple of times to then finally throw him into the sharp beach rocks, wounding him on the side.

"Tell you what, call for an orchish shaman, Virgil I have an idea"

"It is done!"

Within seconds a green skinned creature much like Beast Boy but greater in height and possesing greater musculature appeared. He was wearing a wolf pelt that covered him from the waist down and also his eyes, in his hand was strapped a metallic claw for fighting purposes no doubt, when he approached both angelic beings his words came accompanied with slight thunderclap.

"Yes Warchief?"

"(I hate it when they address me like that) I need you to cast Bloodlust on that kid whose getting pomelled over there"

"Casting Bloodlust on a Teen Titan? Is that safe Tyreal?"

"It isn't, the kid is most likely to lose all comprehension for the duration of the spell and not distinguish friend from foe due to his rather weak constitution, but I think it would suffice for Muradin not being able to kill him until other Titans interfere, it's the only way. Now, cast it!"

"Right away"

The shaman walked up to the pool were he was to channel his spell and looking upward he began to chant

"Let passion fill your soul

Let rage fill your body

Let hatred fill your mind

Let none of your enemies survive!

BLOODLUST!" Beta's note #11

Back on Earth, the green shape shifter moaned and tried to get away by crawling, hearing the light steps of the warrior that intended to kill him approaching, he quickined the pace only to be grabbed by the foot and then turned to his backside; which Muradin used to step on his stomach to both hold him and kick some air out of him.

"Wait man, don't you think all the bullying crap should've left on high school?"

"Always with yer damn jokes eh? Well trry joking yer way outta this"

Muradin then used the opportunity that Beast Boy was injured, tired and immobile to mercilessly punch him on the jaw. His massive strikes making great gushes of blood come out of the titan youngling, once in a while his fist turning blue with energy and then striking him with greater energy as he used his bash technique. Once he made sure Beast Boy could not morph into anything due to his wounds but was still concious so he could know what was happening, he ended his beating and created a storm hammer on his hand.

"I'll at least save yer discomforrt of getting killed by yer own axe"

"Muradin you can't be serious…"

"Oh I am, I told ye not to abandon me over therre, and now yer going to pay"

At the time the dwarf champion raised his hammer in the air and Beast Boy weakly covered his face with his arms sobbing a faint "Please no!" a red gust of air passed through the combatants and landed on the soon to be killed Titan; it grapped itself around Beast Boy and entered his body which made the green kid suddenly feel his body numb as his muscles violently expanded and also lost all sense of self for his vision turned red and could only manage to see dull shadows instead of clear vision. Muradin on the other hand was surprised to recognize the sound of a dozen orcs growling and then his victim increasing in size and his hands glowing; he brought down his hammer anyway to deal the death blow but was even more surprised when Beast Boy catched it by the handle before it crushed his skull and then pushed it to hit Muradin on the forehead with his own hammer by what seemed to be pure rage alone.

Beast Boy, still on his human form, kicked Muradin off him to then in an astonishing table turn, picked him up over his head and tossed him forward into the sand. The warrior fell with a grunt sound and rolled away from his enraged opponent, standing up a safe distance away from him, Muradin would never admit it but he was impressed; he had no idea Beast Boy had such incredible potential within himself seeing him there taller than normal, even with his punched face his eyes were glowing with unearthly fury, breathing hard, teeth bared and foam coming from his mouth like if he had rabies, made the Mountain King think that maybe he had underestimated his opponent.

"I see ye still got some fight left on ye!"

Beast Boy let out a savage howl to the sky as he began transforming into an animal that Muradin, experienced as he was, had never seen before. He began growing even taller his mouth turned into a fanged snout, his hands turned clawed, green fur started covering him, all in all he now seemed to be a mix between a werewolf and an ape. Author's Note #3

"Allrright, maybe lots of fight left on ye"

With bestial speed, the hybrid animal that was Beast Boy pounced the bewildered warrior and delivered a savage storm of claw swipes tearing deep into the dwarf's skin and leaving nasty scars all over his body, Muradin was now getting the worst of the fight as the angered changeling had gone into a berserker frenzy and continued his merciless clawing of the dwarf until he made a movement to snap it's jaws on Muradin's neck, the Bronzebeard only managed to lift up his arm to block and even though the movement saved him from a gruesome blood filled death, his arm was now trapped within the beast jaws and he made no sign of letting go until ripping it off. However Muradin was far from beaten and clutching his hammer once again; he pounded into the warped Beast Boy's head until the pain finally got through him and softened his grip on the warrior's arm which allowed the defending dwarf to deal a horizontal hammer swipe making the beast growl in pain as the arm that he was biting escaped from it's bite, but not without taking a good chunk of it's flesh off.

As he had done to so many ogres, the small fighter brought down his hammer on the beast's foot causing it inmense pain, only to have it retaliate by swiping at the warrior's ribs, he resisted the blow and used the opportunity of the beast lowering his head to strike him with the hammer on it's snout, with a nausieting crack the blow made some pieces of fangs fly off from their place. It made litte effect toward the bloodlusting Beast Boy however, as he turned around and kicked Muradin in the stomach with its hind legs, once again due to his light weight Muradin was pushed by the monstous strength of the beast and rolled back on the sand until stopping by pure friction, he got up as he saw Beast Boy rushing him once again and grinned.

"YEH! Now this be quat I call a fight!"

He charged in response and the combatants again were locked in the deadly struggle.

"Oh shit!" Were the words carefully selected by Cyborg to describe the scenery that he witnessed at that moment. It was quite late and he was about to go to sleep, but in the way to the kitchen for a healthy dose of snacks before hitting the sack he managed to catch a glimpse of shadows moving by the beach, he switched to his infra red vision and looked at the grim spectacle that was unfolding at the very door's of the tower.

"I have no idea why or how did Beast Boy turned into that thing again, but I hope my man Muradin can hold him until I can get Robin" with that said, the android made a mad dash in search of his leader to report to him the news.

Robin was, at the moment, holding a big bouquet of beautiful red roses while he paced nervously around the living room, he smelled strangely of cologne and even though his attire was the usual thing it was obvious by the sparks of perfection that he had been grooming for a while.

"Starfire would you… no with more casualness… Hey Starfire how's about….Wait wait more confidence… Starfire, wazzup baby.."

His somewhat strange monologue was interrupted by the quick clanking of footsteps that could belong to no other than Cyborg himslef, he threw away the bouquet of flowers, which landed with surprising skill on the dinner table safely and unharmed so as to not draw any suspcions toward himself; he really did not wish to expose himself to Cyborg for even though not as big as a prankster as Beast Boy the metallic Titan was still known for his strange sense of humor. He calmy leaned himself on the big sofa's head rester and acted casually, until Cyborg arrived with a worried expression on his face.

"Robin! Robin! We gotta situation!"

Hearing this, Robin quickly changed to hero mode and forgot all about asking Starfire on a date, he was after all not one to let personal matters interfere with a job, unless it was vengance of course.

"Report Cyborg"

"It's Beast Boy! He turned into that thing again!"

"What thing?"

"You know, the one that kinda looks like a werewolf thing and that he can't control himself while he's like that"

"What? Impossible! What is his current position?"

"He's just outside the Tower and attacking Muradin, the poor guy is just being able to hold him at bay"

"We got to hurry there and help him out before Beast Boy leaves for the city, I have a sedative gun that can stop him without harming him. Let's go!"

"Wait! What about the girls?"

"No time, Muradin's in danger!"

With a few glances around Cyborg nodded and followed his leader outside the room, leaving it in darkness and silence as chaos raged outside. As the hurried steps of the martial artist and the android faded away, a new pair of steps were heard approching, these ones came more slowly and silently accompanied with slight sobs of anguish.

The door that led to the living room slid open to reveal the owner of the light footing to be poor Starfire, her hand placed on her cheek were she had been slapped by Raven. The blow obviously did not hurt in the least, the Tamaranian heroine had taken far worst blows without even flinching, but the injury was not of the flesh but of the spirit to be attacked by such a close friend of hers made her feel so saaad; especially because it was because of a simple misunderstanding. Having always her feelings leading the way Starfire could do little to reassure herself that it was nothing to weep about and considered that if that was to be the end of her friendship with Raven, as controversial as it was, it would have been all her fault.

As she mourned for the past incident, her legs took her to the dinner table and there she leaned for support and wept some more. Normally, when something as atrocious as this happened to her she would go straight with Raven to seek council, but it was Raven that had forbidden her to come anywhere near her and as such she now wandered the Tower like a lost soul.

"I am such a gonfdorf, how could I do such a thing to friend Raven? She has all the right to be mad at me."

She wiped a tear with the hand that was still holding her "injured" cheek and as she brought it down, she felt something that was not part of the table's sturdy surface.

"Huh? What is this?"

She fingered something that was unusually leafy to be part of the table and quickly spun around to see the bouquet of red roses that Robin intended to give her, she nonchalantly picked them up and anaylize them as one would an odd bug.

"What are these doing here?" Starfire took a deep breath and catched the sweet aroma that the roses emmaneted "Oh how nice" inspecting it further she came upon the tag that was left blank, apparently Robin did not take the time to write anything on it, she looked more inwardly into the flowers and found absolutely no clue as to who brought them and why were they there.

"How odd, is this an earthling costume I am unaware of?" Then suddenly a ligth bulb, or whatever Tamaranians use to light things, flashed above Starfire signaling that she had an idea.

"I was once told that in order to ask forgiveness one most get an assortment of dead plants and offer them as a token to the wronged person. Perhaps if I give this to friend Raven she will forgive my earlier clumsiness!"

A wide grin came across the alien girl as she jumped up and down in obvious delight of her ingenious, she made some graceful spins while she had the flowers on hand before happily prancing toward the door; which to her great surprise opened before she could get there, letting the dark necromantic girl enter with all her obscure aura accompaning her, her hood down and cloak covering her entirely.

Starfire's merry prancing came to a screeching halt when Raven appeared infront of her. She was truly a scary being especially because it was night already and the lights were off, so the darkness only enhanced her already eerie persona. Yet despite all this seeming obscure glamour she had, her wide expressive eyes flew open in surprise at the same time as her more cheerful counter part and said,

"Starfire!"

"Raven!"

Taking some steps closer to her and the door closing behind her Raven opened her mouth to speak

"Starfire, I wanted to tell you that.."

"No friend Raven, allow me to speak first, it was wrong for me to enter your living space unannounced; and to show my repentance for such tresspasing I wanted to offer you this" Starfire who had been hiding the bouquet of flowers on her back brought it in front of her and showed it to Raven.

"I truly hope you can forgive me"

For what seemed to be ages, Raven stood like a statue her eyes fixed on the red roses that the Tamaranian was holding. Starfire's grip on the roses was nervously steady as she wondered if Raven's lack of movement meant that she would not forgive her, however the dark girl's arms twitched and in with a very slow movement Raven took them with both hands and held them close to her chest catching almost immidiately their perfume.

"Starfire, they're…. beautiful! I don't know what to say…… thank you"

Very girlishly, Starfire placed her hands behind her back and giggled.

"You are quite welcome"

Whle the sorceress basked herself on the fragant scent of the flowers, she did something that was extremely unlike her; her lips moved on an awkard position as it showed a faint smile. Which made Starfire feel somewhat strange.

"As a matter of fact Starfire, I was the one who came to apologize, I shouldn't have treated you like that, not you of all people that are always treating me so kindly" Raven's faint smile quickly turned into a saddened gesture and she looked down as if to hide it "I shouldn't treat you guys like that, I've been so selfish since the start, it wasn't until now that I found out how lucky I am"

The Tamaranian princess panicked as random things started exploding, no doubt due to Raven's sudden burst of emotion.

"I don't want to hurt you guys anymore, not my friends, not you Starfire"

The room shook with dark energy and as if bewitched, objects started floating about and throwing themselves against each other, chairs, the sofa and sharpened kitchen utensils. All this made Starfire fear for her own safety but when others would have selfishly run and hide leaving the witch to her lack of control, the caring girl reached out for the empath and hugged her making the leavitating objects fall as the sorceress once agained regained control.

"Please friend Raven, there is no need to fret in such a manner there has been no harm done"

The girl of demonic origins was still looking down, but in reaction of Starfire's hug she placed her own arms around the Tamaranian's waist, while still holding the flowers, and brought her closer.

"Maybe not right now, but I don't want to imagine what will happen if I just go on like this, I can't take it anymore Starfire"

The magician looked up toward the taller girl's face and locked eyes with her.

"I want to feel again, Starfire"

"Raven……"

Unconciously they began to move their faces closer to each other, their mouths parted and after a few moments of hesitation from both of them, their lips met in a deep tender kiss.

"What the hell?"

"Awesome!"

"Starfire?"

"Odsblood! I rreally suck at this matchmakin' thing!"

The lights flickered on and all the male titans exclaimed when they entered the living room and caught the girls in the act, Raven abruptly broke the kiss and with an irritated sigh she phased out of there, taking the flowers with her and leaving Starfire kissing the air. When the Tamaranian realized that she could no longer feel Raven's lips she opened her eyes and looked around the room in search of her, paying no mind to her other very astonished friends.

"Friend Raven? Were did you go?"

"Starfire wait!"

Turning around as she heard her name being spoken by her leader, the warrior princess's eyes fell as if for the first time upon all her male allies who where standing by the door with shocked expressions. It was a strange sight, Robin and Muradin were the ones who had first row places to the scene, however, the short axe and hammer wielding kid had numerous bloody wounds through out his face and other extremities, his arm was around Robin's shoulders who was obviously helping his wounded teammate to walk. In the back was Cyborg who was giving a piggy ride to Beast Boy, the green kid had also a wide range of wounds however his were not scratches and bite marks like the ones Muradin had but bruises and punch injuries, also from his rear end, poking out like a tail were three long tranquilizer darts. Needless to say he looked a little groggy.

There was somethng they were all sharing however, regardless if they were injured or healthy and that was their wide eyed, gaping mouthed, surprised faces.

"Hello friends... is something the matter?"

The girl from Tamaran asked bewildered to her shocked friends, who in turned looked at each other in surprise that Starfire had actually asked that; they could not believe that the amazon was that naïve.

"Were you and Raven kssing?"

Hearing that comment come out of Robin's mouth made Starfire blush somewhat and respond.

"Yes we were, it was quite nice"

"No it wasn't! It was bad!"

"B-bad?"

"Yes Starfire, bad, very bad"

The amazonic girl felt uneasy when she heard that coming out from her leader, Robin's expression had taken a dramatic change, for now instead of surprised he looked angry; something that always made Starfire feel sad, for Robin did not show anger without good reason and it always meant that something was truly wrong. Starfire did not move from her place, she was still standing in the same spot that they found her, a hand placed on her chest as if to tranquilize her heart; the other Titans however started to move forward and circled her, releasing Muradin, who took seat near the trapped girl, Robin stood right in front of her with Cyborg standing on the other side and letting Beast Boy sit on the sofa's head rester which made him immidiately jump up with an,

"OUCH! Dude! Why did you have to shoot so many darts up my butt?" said the shifter as he plucked carefully each one of them, Cyborg in turn crossed his arms and said as he looked at his injured friend

"You should be thankful that Robin didn't shoot you with anymore, 'cause the way you were attacking my homie Muradin here, he should've shot yo' green ass with a dosis that would've left you out cold for weeks"

"Aw come on man! I don't even know what happened, I told you that I was on the beach then I saw hammer boy coming and POOF, blank, nada I don't remember anything. So why treat me like that?"

Tyreal's plan had worked, apparently one of the side effects of the bloodlust spell, to at least those who were not accostumed to receive it, was the small amount of amnesia that the subject had after the spell lost effect. The shifter could not remember that Muradin had attacked him and intended to kill him, and as for Muradin, well he was just glad he did not lose his life (again) in the fight after seeing Beast Boy in such state he was sure to think twice before messing with him.

"Leave the lad be Cyborrg, he didn't know quat he wez doin'"

"Quiet everyone!"

Robin, irritated that his fellow heroes were going off topic, signaled for silence and attention. There were much more important matters to attend to.

"Starfire, why in the world were you kissing Raven?"

The girl shifted uncomfotably on her position, she did not like the feeling of being interrogated by her teammates, especially because she was not exactly sure what she did wrong; she had always felt a little out of place on Earth and always was on her best behaivor as she wanted earthlings to have the best idea of tamaranians. As such commiting a mistake on a foreign place added a lot to the pressure.

"I… well, friend Raven and I… we had a misunderstanding and… we made up! Yes, it is not an Earth custom to kiss and make up?"

Robin facepalmed and massaged his temples at Starfire's childish reply, he looked very irritated and angry at her, it was certain that he felt crushed by the recent events. The others in the other hand had different expressions, Beast Boy was sitting there looking tired and in pain, even if he wanted to he could not leave due to the extreme agony that Muradin's strikes had given him and the fact that his legs felt numb because of the sedative, however, there was a slight mischivious grin on his face showing that he had enjoyed the scene; it was not every day he got to see that particular behaivor from the girls. Cyborg was standing beside his smaller companion, his arms crossed and looking thoughtful, not exactly angry but more as if questioning what had happened. At last came Muradin who was holding his bitten arm trying to stop the bleeding, his eyes were forced shut both because of the pain of his wounds and because he felt stupid.

"Starfire, look" Robin continued "It's not right to do that."

"Is kissing prohibited on Earth? Because on Tamaran.."

"No, just not that type"

"Which type would that be? Me and friend Raven did not performed the French one"

Beast Boy suddenly bursted out in mad giggles as he stammered "Dude dude! She said performed! That's awesome!" which made Cyborg and Muradin snicker and Starfire to look at him oddly, obviously frustrated at not getting the joke. However Robin was unamused, for he continued scolding Star.

"No Starfire, it's wrong for a girl to kiss another girl on the lips"

"Oh I see"

The Titan leader felt a lot of weight being removed from his shoulders, he smiled content of him finally being able to get his point through, he was about to proclaim victory until the unexperienced girl opened her mouth again.

"And why would that be friend Robin?"

Not being able to take the full impact of Stafire's enormously ignorant words, Robin lost his balance and fell, however he instantly got up with another frustatedly mad expression on his face.

"Why? What do you mean why?"

"Well… I just asked because it felt so very nice, so I do not see why something as good as that would be wrong"

It was quite clear that Robin was having difficulties explaining this delicate topic to his would be date, not only was he insecure of him being the right person to explain that sort of thing but he also felt some sort of shame at doing so infront of everyone. Beast Boy was not helping in the least, he just sat there giggling and repeating the word dude over and over, Cyborg was acting indifferently, his arms were still crossed and gave him an air that he was just an spectator and would not be taking sides any time soon. More than anything Robin was still unsure as to just exactly what motivated Raven of all people (because he was absolutely sure that it was Raven who started that, otherwise she would not have vanished) to persuade Starfire into doing that. Finally giving into the pain of his wounds and the fact that he was failing miserably at his quest, Muradin jumped out of the chair and decided to interfere; he was not about to botch the quest just because Raven took too seriously the whole feeling part.

"Ye canna be kissing girls, 'cuz that makes ye a bloody dyke! AAARRGGG!"

At that very moment a red light of energy struck Muradin on the stomach and seemingly tore something off him and went through the floor. He screamed in pain clutching his abdomen and fell to his knees, the pain was very similar to the one he had felt the day before when he had insulted Beast Boy it felt like something had just sucked ten years of life out of him. The ones present in the room looked at him oddly and saw how he raised his head looking at the ceiling while still on his knees and apparently asked to the above ones.

"Quat? I canna even call 'err dyke? YYYAARRGGG!"

This time the Mountain King could not handle the pain of yet another red light tearing through his stomach and screaming yet again he fell face first on the floor with a thud, when his head landed it made several cracks by the force of the impact.

"Muradin! What's wrong?" Asked Cyborg who thought his wounds had made him pass out, he was relieved to hear the kid's squeaky voice answer with his strong accent.

"I'm fine, continue on, juss' gotta compose meself"

Taking comfort at the fact that Muradin sounded just fine, and knowing anyway that "hammer boy" as Beast Boy had started calling him, did not appreciate help; Robin continued his argument still trying to explain to Starfire why that was culturally unacceptable.

In the meantime, Muradin still laying down began to wonder why by Magni's beard had he just lost two whole levels just because he had called Starfire like that, it could not be possible that the curse extended to such extremes or could it? The Mountain King thought some more hearing how Robin argumented how Starfire had done wrong and the girl clinged almost desperately to the idea that something that felt so right could not be bad, however Robin was not the leader of the Titans because of nothing and his superior wits would soon prevail over Starfire's innocent remarks. A debate arose inside the once fallen dwarven warrior and he began to wonder what was he going to do about the matter, seeing that he had lost two whole levels because he had sided with Robin he decided that perhaps he had joined the wrong side and in fact he was supposed to join Starfire; the idea was not particulary appealing to him but "If that crazed arrchangel Tyreal thinks it's rright" thought Muradin "then maybe I have to play along"

With a grunt Muradin struggled to stand once again and just catched Robin's last phrase.

"So now you understand why that is bad Star?"

"Yes... I think so friend Robin"

"Wait juss' one bloody minute"

All eyes shifted to the standing Titan, Cyborg saw that Muradin was having trouble at keeping his balance and helped him up by letting him lean on his cybernetic arm for support. Once that the Azerothenian champion regained his footing he continued.

"Rrobin didn'tcha juss' said this morrning that it didn't matter quat ye were, be it humans, shapeshifters, androids, aliens or demons.."

"Or leprechauns" added Cyborg with a smile

"Quatever, either way if ye serrved the grreater good ye were accepted in the team"

Wonder boy, shocked by hearing his own motivational speech used against him, paid full attention to Muradin and tried to defend himself.

"Yes, I said that, true, but in no way I intended to say that.."

"Then? The lass's still serrving the grreater good isn't she?"

Starfire chirped in very excitedly "Yes! I shall alway champion the ways of goodness!"

"Ye see therre? So why bother 'err like that? I sa' juss let the little lassie be"

Robin chuckled a bit at hearing Muradin say that, and confident that he would beat him in a conversation match he began to speak but was surprised to hear Cyborg interrupt him.

"He's right you know man, you did say that"

"Cyborg, not you too!"

"What? What's so wrong about supporting that? Hell, I've heard enough thrash talk of me being half robot so I'm not about to start smacking Star verbally about who she can kiss"

"But Cyborg! It's Star and Rae we're talking about"

"Bah! You worry to much, dude"

"Beast Boy? You too?"

"I'm only saying that it would cheer Rae up, maybe if she gets a girlfriend she won't be as bitchy anymore and we may be able to have more fun around here, 'cause she won't break more things and stuff"

Robin's head sagged as he was being contradicted from all side, usually as it was on the battlefield, his word was unquestioned and only Cyborg possed any threat for power squabbiling. However that was not the case in team discussions that did not involed crime fighting and as it was showing right now all that leadership skill that the Titan martial artist possesd was availing to nothing as all his teammates including even the new guy had opposed to him. The spiky haired kid may be stubborn but he was a fair and just leader after all and he knew when he had been defeated on an argument.

"I can't believe you guys"

In his despair, Robin had sat down in the stool the wounded hammer boy had once been sitting. The only one that truly understood why their young leader was acting in such a defeated manner was Muradin, who knew that even though mayhap not the true reason of their argument, one of the strongest points was that he wanted Starfire for himself and not to lose her to the necromancer girl. It did not made any sense at all to him he kept asking himself, why Raven? Why Raven the one who is always pushing everyone away of all people would fly in and steal Starfire from him, the very idea sounded ridiculous. Alas there was nothing to be done at the moment, Robin would have to device another strategy later.

"So what does this mean friend Robin?"

"Seems that, everyone thinks that you should do whatever you want"

"Does that mean that it was not wrong for me and friend Raven to kiss?"

"Err…no it doesn't seem that way"

Starfire's eyes light up in delight and she exclaimed

"Does that mean I can do it again?"

Robin got a face that signaled that he was about to be sick at the overly happy attitude Starfire was showing at that particular topic

"Ung.. only if you want to"

"Oh happy day!"

The alien's remark was accompanied by snickers from Beast Boy who mentioned "yeah, rainbow colored happy" as Starfire levitated and expressed her cheerfulness in only a way she could, her emotions always got the best of her. Robin's somber face was the complete oposite of his female ally as he looked down in defeat and curled his hands on fists as he struggled to accept his helplessnes.

"Well it's been great and all but I really need to go to sleep" said Cyborg as he yawned and headed for his room followed by a limping Beast Boy who could not stop laughing and saying stupid remarks of how happy the day was. Robin at the very least got a big hug from Starfire as if thanking him for letting her be and then she flew of to her room, leaving her leader alone on the room with the wounded hammer boy.

Robin, remembering that it was Muradin who had suggested for him and Starfire to go out and then him being the one who defended the girl's right to chose, turned around to face him and ask him what was his problem but he found him limping away on the direction of the exit

"Hey! Were do you think you're going?"

"Where do ye think I'm going? I gotta go bandage this up, ye want me to bleed to death or quat?"

With no more words spoken Muradin left the irritated leader, leaving him with no other choice than to go to bed and sleep away his suspicion that the little super hero had only agreed with Starfire out of pure jealousy of Robin taking her.

Muradin now found himslef sitting on the very roof of the Titan Tower his legs dangling from the edge like a little toddler would do, staring at the night sky and admiring the landscape that was the iluminated Jump city. He considered that the cool night air and the view would be enough to

"Distrract me frram the bloody stings of ma' wounds blast it all! That bloated green gas bag o' Beast Boy, trrying to tear me arrm off why won't he? He wez juss' lucky I couldn't go Avatar on him 'cause then I would've beaten him out rright"

As he let his frustration come out in the form of insults, the Khaz Modanian dwarf warrior rubbed his bandaged arm and toughed out the pain that it caused not wanting to admit that it was actually really painfull; Muradin had always been a little to proud for his own good. He sighed and watched his warm breath dissipate in the air, at the very least he was alive again.

"I wonder how arre things on Azerroth, hope no one's missing me much. Ah thos times were easy, I didn't have to think so much I only had to fight and now I gotta play cupid for a bunch of brrats. I'm so bad at that, I donna even know how in the worrld my efforrts made thos two lassies do that quat they did!"

"Yes, you really screw up that one up didn't you my little Muradin?"

"Aw crrap!" Muradin cursed as he recognized his guardian angels voice coming from behind him, he turned rapidly and saw gentle Saki, looking with that ever present expression of understanding that she had. "I'm really gonna get it now" were Muradin's thoughts as Saki started calmly walking towards him, he motioned to got up but Saki reached him before he could do so and placing her hand gently on his shoulder she held him on his place as she took a sit next to him; in the same position that he was on, her legs dangling from the edge.

"So.. I suppose ye came 'erre to scold me fer messing up aren't ye?"

Saki did not respond she just kept on looking to the horizon, Muradin was looking up to her from the corner of his eye not wanting to actually be staring into her face. She was very strange to the dwarf's eyes, even for a guardian angel. Her face radiated such inmense saddened kindness, as if something horrible had happened to her once, or she had lost a loved one or something of similar nature, yet despite all that she released nothing but joy and forgivness. Muradin and to anyone else that was lucky enough to lay eyes on her, could see that she was that almost extinct type of person that showed the other cheek, and she herslef could forgive any sort of insult given to her, but her delicate frame hid very well her inmense power and even though she would actually defend herself if any friends of her would come into harm it was certain by her kind compassive eyes that she would without a moment hesitation would jump forward to defend them. The Mountain King was glad that he got such a devout guardian angel.

"Tell me Muradin"

The dwarf was snapped back to reality when he heard Saki's tender voice speaking to him

"Aye?"

"What do you really think about what just happened back there"

"Quat do ye mean?"

"About the girls, do you oppose on all seariousness such things? You are free to speak your mind the curse will not substract anymore levels while you answer"

Saki passed a hand over Muradin's forhead and he felt slight tingiling from his body. He looked puzzled as to why exactly was his guardian angel so interested in knowing his opinion about the subject. The dwarf rubbed his bandaged arm some more while he thougth about it and said

"Well, I donna know why ye be asking me that. But like ye knaw back on Azerroth I didn't exactly held a lot o' rrespect for nancy boys" Muradin scratched his very faint goatie as he continued "However by that I juss' ment that they were weak, not that ye know they were nancy boys. Trruthfully, I had not until now thought 'bout the subject, not ever. Ye think I wez gonna be thinking about things like that when I wez int the middle of battles fighting for me life? Ha! How silly!"

"But" Saki interrupted him "I know that on your old life you never had the opportunity to live such things, but now that you have been exposed; what are your true thoughts?"

Muradin rubbed his nose while he looked at the taller girl square on the eye showing that he was not in the least bit vexed by Saki's interrogation, he was in truth very annoyed but being the proud dwarven warrior he had always been he just did not wanted to show it.

"Hmm.. I used to think that I had seen it all, from the dead stirring frram their tombs to attack the living to legions of drragons clouding the sky in their attack forrmation, but now I see that I missed some of the most simplest things of life and I can say now that… I donna give a damn"

"You what?"

"Aye, I donna care 'bout who's kissing who. If ye say that ye support that then yer gay and if ye say yer against that then yer a homophobe so now I sa' that I perrsonally donna care, people can do anything they wanna do. We might as well be all rrocks without feelings if we all had to do the same things"

Muradin's guardian angel stood looking at her protegee with her eyes fully opened, discomfort got the better of the short warrior and he broke eye contact to look elsewhere

"Allrright that sounded a little corrny but that's- ACK!"

The dwarf's cheeks suddenly caught fire as he felt Saki leaning down on him and placed a slight kiss on the side of his face. Muradin almost fell from the the tall tower by the surprise but he quickly got up and unseathing his axe he jumped back and took a defensive positon

"Ye succubus! Quat the 'ell arre ye doin'?"

Saki got up and looking at Muradin with a kind smile she said

"Wait for it"

In that moment a searing golden light came down upon the warrior's head. He felt his power increasesing and he closed his eyes to fully embrace the great energy that was surging through his body. His muscles hardened and in his mind poured a great deal of warrior lore that enhanced his already heroic skills. The power was so overwhelming that Muradin levitated by the sheer strength that he was consuming. Then as suddenly as it had occurred the light vanished and Muradin fell to his feet feelig stronger than ever.

"Now, won't don't you check your medalion?"

The dwarven thane did as his angelic guard instructed and took out the medallion from his pocket, as he did his eyes felt like falling out of their sockets

"HOLY LIGHT! I'm frreaking level 15!"

"That's right, a little gift from my part"

Saki giggled at the overly dramatic expression that her protegee did.

"But.. why? I failed miserrably at the quest!"

"You did not failed my little chibi, all you had to do was to show Robin's and Starfire's true feelings for each other. You did a great job showing Robin that he felt love for her teammate, but also by accident you managed to show that even though Starfire would gladly return such love, there was someone in the team that was in much more need of affection than Robin. That was Raven, Muradin you have no idea the joy that you have sparked on the girl today, and as such you more than deserve your new bestowed power for being such an excellent cupid"

"I think I'm gonna be sick"

"Perhaps you feel that way right now, but in the long run you will admit to yourself that you did the right thing"

Jumping from the edge of the Titan Tower, Saki fell to the abyss. Muradin made a gasp and rushed to see why in the world she had done such thing, however he was astonished by the fact that even before he could reach the edge of the tower Saki came back up this time with her wide angelic wings spread open, there she stood levitating for a while amused at the fact that Muradin had actually been worried of her safety

"I'll see you later, my little chibi. Go to sleep now, you've earned it"

Blowing a kiss to her protegee, the angel made a backward flip in mid air and headed for the city. Muradin not quite able to understand what just happened headed back to the entrance of the tower when he could no longer see his guardian angel; before he entered again he facepalmed and said

"Crrap, I forrgot to ask her quat the bloody 'ell does chibi mean"

Eons away from there, sitting on a great golden chair, sat the archangel Tyreal flipping the pages of a colossal book titled Laws of Science and Physic. Suddenly he bursted out laughing in mad hysteria, slapping his knee as he did so, his booming laugh echoing the bright room that he was in. A knock was heard on an invisible door

"Come in, Come in" Said Tyreal as he closed the book with a loud bang noise, a wooden door appeared and a very tored up looking angel dressed in similar fashion as Tyreal, but not as elegantly, entered

"Lord Tyreal we got a problem"

The angel collapsed on the floor and Tyreal levitating towards him picked him up with one of his tentacle wings.

"What in God's name happened to you?"

"New souls entering the traitors hell, my lord. They are running amock at the entrance and they refuse to go in"

"Well I'm not exactly surprised that they don't want to, but still why are the guards stationed in there not forcing them to do so?"

"The new mortal souls are extremely powerful sire, it started out as a single little soul resisting but it was soon joined by another one of great strength. Both of them are beating up the nearby guards and warrior souls, if they are not stopped soon the will create a revolution"

"Just two souls are creating such disaster?"

"That is correct my lord"

With hmm sound, the high ranking archangel dropped his fellow celestial on his back, which caused the unlucky angel to grunt in pain, and walking towards the door he said

"I shall look into this myself"

With one movement of his hand he was already at the great hall leading to the portal that led to the traitors hell a horrid place were all those who gained turst and betrayed it went to if they did not fully repented.

As he appeared, Tyreal scarecely had time to duck and dodge an oncoming angel that had been flung by someone, the celestial guard flew past him screaming as he did so and landed on a pedestal breaking it in two. Tyreal looked around and noticed the many deceased warrior souls that were standing around there looking at each other doubtful of their abilites of assisting in stopping such menaces.

"You orc warrior over there!"

"What are your orders Warchief?"

"(I'm still hating when they call me like that) who is in charge here?"

"I think it's blademaster Daisho Warchief"

"And where is he?"

"HERE HE COMES!"

Tyreal was alerted by a nearby human knight's cry of warning, for he raised his head and looked toward the hall and catched glimpse of an orc looking creature that was flying towards him, the warrior screamed in pain as he landed and bounced on the floor a couple of times, as he approached sliding, the crowd made way for him to pass and finally the blademaster rolled and stopped on the archangel's feet. Tyreal looked down toward the warrior to see who was he and beheld a veteran looking orc that perhaps had been in a battle too many, he leaned on his two meters long mounstrous clymore sword and got up enfuriated, mumbuling as he did

"Why that no good son of a kobold little" feeling a presence behind him the orc turned and confronted the glorious archangel "OH! Lord Tyreal, I..uh… we got the situation under control!"

"What's going on commander?" Said Tyreal with annoyance in his voice showing that he had no time for nonsense

"Well.. everything was going smoothly today lord, but when we got the new shipment of souls that had been convicted of treachery, the soul of a human girl started getting rowdy and complaining that hers was an unjust trial and got all dramatic and stuff; I was about to fling her to the gate of hell myself for her rethoric when a crazy night elf soul that was next to her apparently agreed with her and breaking free of his bonds started wreaking chaos in there. Even though that he was unarmed and out numbered he managed to knock out some guards and several of my warriors, and when I was just about to fall on him he released the human girl soul and she started chuking rocks at us"

"Wait, hold up , hold up. She threw rocks at you?" Asked Tyreal not believing what he had just heard

"Yes lord, really BIG rocks (and they gave me an ouchie)"

Narrowing his unseen eyes at the ridiculous behaivor of the blademaster, Tyreal unseathed his flaming sword and said to the orcish garrison commander

"Make sure no more souls are sent here, I shall take care of this personally"

"Hai!"

The archangel started walking the long corridor that led to the red hellish portal, as he approached his ears heard the unmistekable sound of the clashing of steel and cries of battle. There was a great deal of angelic guards and both human and orc warrior souls thrown on the floor fighting to regain consiousness, whoever were this little rebels they were quite skilled for not many mortals could take on an entire celestial garrison aided by Azerothenian troops, the habitants of the most belic of planets. He walked up the battle torn stairs and steping aside he dodged a footman that had been sent flying out of there, ignoring the grunts of pain that the human released as he rolled down the stairs, Tyreal continued on and halted when he got to a point where there was simply to many people to continue on; the great conmosion the rebelion was having , due to scared convicted souls that were trying to get away and other warriors and guards that were rushing in to quell it forced Tyreal to fly up. From his position he catched some figures near the the soul torturing portal fighting to stay of it and with one swift movement he landed in the middle ot the battle screaming

"STOP! What in the name of all that is holy is going on here?"

His commanding voice aided by the glowing aura that always seemed to accompany him were enough to suggest to all the combatants to stop

"Will the rebels step forward so that I may deal with them accordingly" Threatened the angel as he ran his finger through the blade of his flaming sword without harming him.

No one moved for a moment or two and because they were great many souls there, Tyreal could not be quite sure who was the rebel who was not, some murmur came from the crowd and despite some screams that commanded to wait a small blonde haired girl of human stock pushed through the crowd and confronted the archangel

"I won't let you assholes send me to hell, sure I betrayed my team but I repented! I repented dammit!"

"So, you think you are capable of judging your own destiny girl? That is quite cute, but I'm afraid you have set your faith on our hands now, such is the price of treason. Besides I find hard to believe that you alone were leading this rebellion, whoever was aiding you better step up unless he's a coward"

As the archangel uttered those words he felt someone trying to jump on his back, he flicked on of his tentacle wings like a wip and struck the usurpator down sending him infront of him. Though most of his features were hidden because of his cloak, everyone there present could swear that Tyreal was smiling when his vision fell upon the night elf man that he had thrown infront

"Well well well, now this is someone that I would expect to lead a rebellion over here, I didn't think that you were going to die anytime soon.. Illidan Stormrage, I hope your death was a pleasant one"

Jumping skillfully up a light purple skinned elf creature, shirtless and wearing only crude made pants and a bandanna holding his long hair, stood once again on his feet and looked Tyreal with eyes of hate. He had strange tan marks across his eyes as if the bandana that was holding the hair of his face had once covered his eyes for a long time.

"Your justice system is flawed! I do not deserve this faith, do you not know that I died fighting against the undead? Enemies of us all! I refuse to be condemend to eternal torment for I have already spent more than ten thousand years on solitude, I believe I have already paid for all my crimes and then some!"

"Yeah! Same here!"

The girl beside Illidan shot up and everyone looked at her wondering how was it possible that such a young girl could have endured such harship. Feeling embarassed at so many faces staring at her, the girl smiled nervously and played with her hands

"Well, excpet for the ten thousand years on solitude part"

Tyreal noticing acknowladging the girl's presence spoke to her

"And just who exactly would you be?"

"I'm Terra! From the Teen Titans! Or..well… I think I was one of the Titans"

"Oh really? What a coincidence, I have been dealing on your sector quite recently"

The archangel placed his sword on his seath once again and crossing his arms on his chest he said

"Regardless, it was nice talking to you but now you have to hell. Goodbye"

"NO! NOOOO!"

Illidan screamed like a true mad man, and knowing he had nothing else to lose he charged toward the angel with all the hatred he had mustred along the centuries. Tyreal's tentacle wings easily struck him down piercing him on the chest, despite all the night elf warrior's skill he groaned in pain and rolled to his side to be captured by one Tyreal's wings like a an octopus grabing a fish. Seeing the guy that was helping her fall so easily and knowing that retreat was not an option Terra in a last deseperate attemt to defend herself used her geomantic skills to control a huge white pillar and sent it toward the angel, with three of his tentacle Tyreal caught it and crushed it into dust and with his one last free wing he took hold of Terra who meekly punched it's captor wing trying to make it release her.

The final blow was a bolt of holy electricity going through Tyreal's wings and paralyzing his prisioners with shocks of pains. The archangel uncrossed his arms and clicked a stop watch

"15 seconds.. not bad"

Illidan now subdued by the pain groaned and struggled to speak

"What?…..you…were timing us?"

"Yes yes, I was measuring your potential and I'm impressed"

Making the stop watch dissapier on his hand like a cheap magic trick, Tyreal continued talking

"I was thinking that myabe you have been judged wrongly and do not deserve to go to hell yet"

"R-really?" asked Terra, her blue eyes widening in hope

"No I'm just messing with you, HA HA HA!"

Quickly a pair of knights brought up from the stairs a drum set and a nearby orc grunt sat infront of them and played the particular drum beat that was heard after a comedian says a joke

"No but searisouly folks" Tyreal resumed and adressed a teary eyed Terra; and Iliidan that had an expression that said "what an ass"

"Since I am on a forgiving mood I will overlook such motinity, and because I have seen that it is quite true that we some rare times also make mistakes I will make a proposal to you both"

"Speak archangel" Responded Illidan eager to be done with it and be freed not only of his gruesome faith and more importantly Tyreal's grip

"How about I send both in a good old fashion quest?"

"Are you searious?"

"Yes I am, I would be able to shoot two birds with one stone. Not only will you gain redemption for your crimes but you will also test a certain envoy of mine. What do you say?"

"But I don't even know this guy!"

"Well Terra, know that you already have something in common with cunning Illidan here, you are both traitors. Besides would you much rather be sent to the traitors hell?"

"No I guess not"

"So what do you say"

Illidan and Terra exchanged glances from their trapped positions and without much thinking they nodded and turned back to Tyreal and the night elf demon hunter said

"Very well, what do we have to do?"

El Loco: And so ends the second chapter of this story, stay tuned next time when Terra and Illidan take on Muradin and his Titan allies.

Urgg.. that was corny. Well until next time mis amigos. I gotta go chop stuff up with my axe

Beta's Note #1: muthafucka!

Beta's Note #2: yay mallrats! wo0t.

Beta's Note #3: this reminds me of the Jeffrey Brown cartoon where that white rapper dude comes up to the slutty chick and he's all "wazzup baby" ... the one where he asks that guy to shave his back? Yar, um, proceeding...

Beta's Note #4: Remember kids, stay in school, 'mmkay? You don't want to end up giving out free cheese samples like Saki.

Beta's Note #5: Barrage of cheeeeeseeeee! Look out! runs and hides

Beta's Note #6: Hey! Cheeseman does that when I mess up his hair!

Author's Note #1: Drooooooooooooooooooooooooooolssssssssssss

Beta's Note to Author's Note: you sick pervert fuck.

Beta's Note #7: giggle

Author's Note #2: Clean a weight refers to a weight lifting term which means doing a half olympic press

Beta's Note #8: I 3 DEAD MILKMEN!

Beta's Note #9: Get it? It's a joke. WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING?

Beta's Note #10: What an emo bitch. (audience nods)

Author's Note #3: He turned into the "Beast within" creature

Beta's Note #11: shake yer booty – doo de dum – let's do the Bloodlust, everybody!


End file.
